


Bond

by raindropwaltz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Obsession, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Slow Burn, give me force bond or give me death tbqh, i am literally the worst at giving things titles, please someone help my space children, rey is just as stubborn as kylo ren is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:44:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 191,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10129859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raindropwaltz/pseuds/raindropwaltz
Summary: Force Bond.Being alone together. A rush of emotions and thoughts. Nothing hidden, everything shared. Frustration and overload. Belonging and home.





	1. An Offering

**Author's Note:**

> an adaptation of an ongoing roleplay between myself and a close friend.  
> rey and kylo ren discover the Force bond that exists between the two of them, for better or worse.  
>   
> yikes this was a long kick-off. if you're still with me then heyo, you're a real trooper and i am super grateful and i hope you enjoyed the read--and maybe even come back for the next chapter?

Blades crash together, and Kylo Ren is so tired.  
They have been at this for hours; it feels like days even, and he is ready for an end. His movements are becoming more erratic, more savage and less restrained.  
They _had_ been restrained. He defies anyone to say they hadn't been.  
He had shown her mercy at the beginning.

Hit, hit, swing, _hit_ \--the blades of their lightsabers clash again and again, sparks flying from the two crossed beams, nearly blinding and long since startling enough to make Rey flinch or jump. He's beginning to lose it, though, she can feel it--he's swinging at her wildly now, and it makes her realize that he was....

He was holding back, before.

The thought does resonate in her mind. The control doesn't seem so obvious but then, she doesn't really have time to reflect on it so much at the moment. His sizzling red blade zips just beside her ear and she swings at him again, and it seems so...practiced? Planned? So coordinated, like they're just...dancing around one another, playing at striking death blows.  
Acting out the prelude to a murder.

He feels it the moment she realizes he's been restraining himself for her. _Yes clever thing, yes,_ he wills to her, _oh yes, I was holding back for you. Only for you._ Only _ever_ for her--it is maddening and exhilarating, pushing things further and further to see her resolve to follow her Master's teachings and the foolish Jedi Code start to crumble. She is powerful in those moments, she is _his_ in those moments.  
  
Make no mistake, she is his in other moments too. His scavenger. _His Rey_. She seems oblivious to their bond, but the fact remains that she belongs to him now.  
  
She's getting tired herself, she can feel her muscles starting to ache, but she pushes on despite their protests. She has to finish this. She has to get away. If she can just run, if she can get back to the base, she'll be safe, he'll leave if she gets far enough--but she knows better than to try and run from him. He's found her again, months deep after their battle on the Starkiller, brandishing his face at her to remind her of her work there. As if she needs such a reminder.

She can see him, so clearly, when she closes her eyes sometimes. She sees him there in the snow, lying prone and staring at her with the most unreadable and frightening expression on his face. She tries not to think of how it looked something like reverence.  
He blocks her again and now their blades lock; one of the blades on her new modified staff burning yellow against his raw red, the lights blazing like an inferno in his otherwise stormy eyes. She hates looking at him, sometimes. He seems to stare right through her skin, and she does not know what he can see beneath.

Her saber narrowly misses his shoulder and he lets out a feral growl, swinging hard for her while she's on the backswing--misses, clever girl is too quick--and then swings again. He can feel sweat on his forehead, his neck, his arms, she is not making this easy, but then he hadn't expected that from her. Something claws at him from the depths of his consciousness, as if trying to drag him from the fight.  
_Why isn't it over why haven't you won why haven't you ended this strike her kill her take her **strike her now**_ but it begged to reason: why _hadn't_ this ended by now?

That is treading into dangerous territory.

He strikes at her shoulder and she blocks him, and their two blades sing with the contact, the light from the two of them meeting nearly blinding.  
"You have to know this is pointless!" he snarls at her finally, pushing at her blade, just so, just enough to try and throw her off-balance. The light is brighter than daylight, illuminating her face in front of his, burning in her eyes so they glow like suns. He almost sneers, but can't bring the curdling to his face. The Light in her has been tormenting him for months, now. Blazing from her across star systems and the blackness of infinite space, waking him in the dead of night and distracting him during waking hours like the beacon of some far-off tower, blinking at him from across the void whenever it so chooses. "You know like I do! Skywalker can't teach you what you need to learn!" He snaps at her, and thunder rolls somewhere off in the distance. **  
** Luke Skywalker will fail her, just as he failed him, just as he failed the other padawans from all those years ago. She is special: the scavenger, _Rey_ , more special than even Luke knows, but he knows. He knows what is in her, he saw it on Starkiller, felt it through the Force, magnified by their close proximity to each other and flaring up inside her like a wildfire.  
  
Rey can smell the oncoming rain, but she has no time now to revel in it, wait for the rain with her usual excitement. All because of _him_. But she doesn't understand what he means--this fight was never pointless, not...there is a reason for all of it, she knows there is!  
"You're the one who came after _me_! You chased me here, you started all of this!" She rages back, baring her teeth at him. He's disrupted _everything_! For what? So she'll be his student? "Master Luke is teaching me the Jedi way! The same thing he tried to teach _you_ , before you destroyed everything!" Oh yes, she's heard the tale. She knows what happened all those years ago, how his own nephew went rogue and murdered padawans, destroyed the new age of Jedi that Luke tried to usher in before it even began to dawn.  
What does he want from her? He knows she will become a Jedi. She won't succumb to the darkness like he did.  
  
"He failed me long before his silly project was ended," he does sneer at her now, "But give him time, and he will fail you, too. In that, I have the utmost confidence." He sounds patronizing now, heavily insincere in his enthusiasm. But the storm is coming. The time for playing games is done.  
"I came to you, scavenger girl. I came to your call--and you will come to mine." he is insistent now, storming eyes baring down into hers. She glows with her power, he is drawn in. It would extend to her, it had to! They have a Bond, it is _both_ of them now, she is his, not the Traitor's, not the Jedi, _his_. There is no one else she _can_ belong to; what they have is _sacred_ , and it will not be denied.   
He's staring at her. Staring, _seeing_ her; his eyes are burning into her, hotter than any saber blade--she struggles some against his press, trying to break loose, trying to think of what to do when she breaks loose.

Rey won't be satisfied with his foolish Jedi teachings. He knows she won't. He knows, just like she knows, even if she isn't aware of it yet. Months of feeling her from light years away, months of absolute _torment_ that has culminated now in them crossing blades again, this time during the rumble of an oncoming storm on D'Qar. The two of them are _bound_ now, he can't escape her if he wanted to--and she can't escape him.  
He is talking down to her though, and she doesn't like it. Her nose wrinkles, her brow knits, her eyes narrow.  
"You destroyed everything that could have been. You took them all away, you _murdered_ them, people like--" She feels the familiar pain roiling up in her throat, the angry tears in her eyes as she glares at him. People like _her_. She has never known family, but what could have been, if he hadn't taken all of those lives, if he hadn't destroyed everything before it had come to fruition--"--You trained with them! You lived with them, you knew them! You _murdered_ them! You murdered your father, you hurt Finn!" she feels _rage_ , she feels it in her bones, burning her inside. "I will _never_ come with you!"

  
He feels her thoughts drift to the Rebellion, to her friends, and he shoves at her blade, baring teeth, raging at her distraction. _MINE!_ his consciousness roars at her, jerking her focus back to the here and now, back to him. How dare they invade her mind at a time like this? They have no claim to her, no right to her--his scavenger, his, _his!_ He grits his teeth when she mentions The _Traitor_. Failed stormtrooper. _Fool_. Now is not the time for her to think of _him_.  
She is right, at least, about one thing: he had tracked her here. He has felt her, sensed her, been plagued by her for months, and Kylo Ren is nothing if not determined, and Kylo Ren is now determined to take what is his.  
He pushes her now, hard, and she nearly loses her footing, but what hits her full-force is the wave of _possessiveness_ that slams into her, calls her his, tries to lay his claim on her. Rey grits her teeth and pushes back, refusing to go down, refusing to fall back, refusing _him_.  
"I am _not_ yours!" She shouts, and their hold is broken.

He does retreat, if only by a few steps. **  
** He squares his jaw, crackling lightsaber swinging in almost too-elaborate arcs in his hand. She doesn't understand, not yet. She is strong, she will not give in so easily, but she is his already. He watches her expression shift, she doesn't like how he is addressing her. It is almost enough to make him smile, but he doesn't.  
The students. She is thinking of his old classmates--she is _angry_. Not about the killings on their own, but because of who they were. But she is wrong, she doesn't know, she can't possibly know; the old fool has been lying to her. She thinks he eradicated the other padawans, the others like her, like _them_. The others had never been like them. **  
**  
She is angry, so angry, it is rolling off of her in waves. She doesn't understand how powerful she is, she doesn't _know_ \--but he will show her. He is the only one who can. Skywalker doesn't understand, he can't help her--he will _fail_ her, he will destroy her by not showing her what her full potential is, what it can be. If she lets him teach her...for only a split second his thoughts shift to darker things, to old tales of masters and apprentices, to his grandfather--and Rey wants to hurt him, she wants to rip into him and make him _pay_ for what he did. Finn. Poe. Han. His mother--his mother who she'd looked in the eyes, who took her into the Resistance like she had always belonged there, who she knows he devastated time and again, no matter how strong she was. She will make him hurt just as he hurt them, as he hurt her. She sees the scar on his face and she _roars_ , swinging for him like a storm, a whirl of light and fury. Oh no, all of that is a whisper of what she wants to do now.  
  
She feels conflicted, but everything in her is burning and raging against her to strike him down, to end this, to feel the Force and find out what she can truly do. It is a rush--a pure, thrilling rush, like nothing adrenaline could ever provide. She swings and thrusts at him and she feels wild, teeth bared, arms hard in her followthrough. There is some part of her, some frightening part of her, that wants to toss her staff aside and tear into him with her bare hands, to feel the black cloth of his robes rip and find flesh and blood underneath with her nails and it would be so _satisfying_ , to have him at her mercy and... Her eyes meet his again, over the blaze of lights, the rising wind. Thunder again. A gust of wind over the grass. _What do you want from me what do you want from me what will you make me do what is this making me into what do I want from **you** fatherkiller murderer monster--_  
  
He makes to reply to her then but there is a sudden gust of energy; it is hers, and it is _strong_. He knows this feeling. It is the same as it had been on Starkiller, the same as he remembers her, the two of them crashing through the dying forest. Her eyes positively glow, and oh, here she is again, his Rey, who slashes at him and bares white teeth and thrums with pure power. He meets her blows, finding energy in the rush of seeing her this way again, feeling the unrestrained Force rushing through her and through the both of them because of it. She is projecting, he can feel all of the rage and it makes him _shiver_ , and he can't stop his lips from curving into a small smile as he swings back at her.  
_\--fatherkiller murderer monster--_ he hears it as clearly as if she was speaking the words to him, and all the smiles die. He nearly takes off her hand then, but he's careful--so careful with his scavenger. He is so insistent, so determined, and she wants him to stop, to leave her alone! She lashes at him, whirlwind of light and staff and anger, but he knocks her back and she recoils from his blade but then he knocks her hold loose instead, sending her skidding back until she's tumbling to the grass, rushing to get her bearings again, get back to her feet, fight him--

"I am the only one who can train you--I am the only one who _knows_ you! You think Skywalker understands _this_?" He sounds more imploring than he means to. It is a miscalculation, but too late. "I know you, scavenger," he points at her with his jagged red blade, eyes always on hers, "This power you feel, Skywalker will never understand! You know he can't!" No, Skywalker could never. But the two of them...together, the two of them can be so much more. He reaches to her now--not with hands, with power, with energy, with the Force. Like calls to like, but he cannot admit that it is her Light that draws him in so. Not even to himself. Kylo Ren, the great liar, truths hidden even from himself. His eyes are more honest than he realizes and suddenly he wishes he had not met her bare-faced, but he could not have done this any other way, all the same.   
  
She's stopped by the strange, almost frightening _beseeching_ tone of his voice. Her eyes are on his--she can't look away, Maker why can't she just look away--and she wonders at this for a moment. He wants so desperately for her to...what, come with him? Learn from him? Learn what, the ways of the Dark Side? She won't fall to that, she's not like that, she's not! But something in her rustles, paces, writhes, like something stirring in a deep vast sea, and she can't...she can't lie to herself, she can't push it away. Rey knows the Dark. Rey knows the veil of black and shade that covers her eyes and makes the Dark feel like relief from the blinding bright of all else. The wind is on them again. He gestures with his lightsaber, and she feels...what is this?  
  
It...it threads at her. It _caresses_ her, like spider-silk along the edges of her consciousness, and she recoils again. It's _him_ , reaching for her, _touching_ her--but why...why is it so...  
She can feel him. She has no explanation but it's like on Starkiller, like on that horrid metal sheet, just...lighter? _Softer_? Like cautious fingertips, unlike the cold hands that fumbled through her head before. Her brow knits and she frowns. He is _holding back_ again! Why? Why is he doing this?  
  
"Stop it!" she snaps, breathing hard and on her feet again and staring him down, staff still in her hand, half-poised to protect herself. "Stay _out_ of my head!" She pushes him back, just as she did before, shoving him off, boring into him instead, but what she finds now makes her throat go dry and sends her stumbling back in the grass a few steps further away from him. "What--what are you--why--" It is possessive, it is desiring, it is longing, it is _terrifying_. What did you do when the monster who chased you, who hunted you, who clawed at your dreams and always seemed to be looming, lurking, was in _reverence_ of you?  
  
The wind whips her loose hair around her face, threatening to spill the rest out of the knots she's tied it into. Thunder crashes now, and lightning striking makes her realize how dark the sky has gotten. She stares at him, at Kylo Ren, unbelieving, afraid. What does he _want_ from her?

He sees it in her eyes. She's--well, she's at least _starting_ to understand.  
  
Still, she recoils from him.  
  
His brow furrows some as she steps back, clearly startled by the touch of the Force like this--he remembers how she fought against it on Starkiller and the corners of his lips tug down some. This isn't like that! He didn't _know_ then, not yet--but now he sees, now she is his, and he...try as he might, he cannot hurt her like that. She rebukes him for reaching for her and he advances a step, but then she reaches into _him_ , and he goes still. Oh, clever girl, powerful girl, she's figuring it out.  
  
He sees her eyes and knows she doesn't understand what she's finding, though, and it alarms him some. What is she sensing, what is it she feels from him--he tries to block her out just then but it's far too late for that and he knows it. Why is there fear in her eyes? No, no...this is wrong, they lock blades but now it is different, she knows it is!  
Doesn't she?  
  
He takes another step towards her, reaching a tentative hand up.  
"You feel it--I told you before, I feel it too." _The Bond, scavenger girl, you feel it, I know you do_ he tries to send it across the link between them, tries to make her hear him. His eyes burn into hers, willing her to understand, to listen, to feel what he feels. This is inescapable now, she _has_ to understand. Skywalker can't teach her about this, he can't understand this. He takes another step, and another. Rey is on her feet again and Kylo advances slowly, trying to convince her with his eyes not to run from him. _Not again_ , he thinks, and remembers the chasm on Starkiller, the tails of her clothing whipping behind her as she ran into the collapsing trees. He will not lose her this time. They are too far from the Resistance base, even if she runs.

She can feel so much in him, oh Maker she can feel _too_ much--longing and want and fear and anger--and she feels frozen, she feels like she can't breathe for a moment, it's too much and it's overwhelming, how can he be feeling so _much_ , how can she be feeling what he's feeling, how is this _possible_?  
  
She can feel something pushing at her just then. He's trying to push her out! She nearly jumps, realizing. She's in his head, she's in his feelings, she's invading now--but how, how is she doing this, she didn't even mean to, she didn't try, not like on Starkiller, not like before, but...  
This isn't like before. This is different, this is new and it's frightening and she doesn't know what to do, he feels too much and she doesn't understand what to do. How did she get into his head, how is she feeling these things, how?  
  
He steps towards her and she can't move, but not by his hand this time.  
_"Don't be afraid. I feel it too."_ She remembers, she hears the words so often in her head, trying to figure out what he felt, what she felt, what was happening between them. Something had started that day, that moment in that awful cold metal cell--  
_Bond_. A simple word that carried so much meaning. His voice in her head, murmuring in her ears. How? Her eyes widen, and he steps towards her again. She stares. His eyes are practically begging her not to run and she can feel him reaching for her again and she wants to run, she wants to escape; she's so far out from the base but she could at least get away from this, from him, from his eyes and these feelings that she doesn't understand. She is becoming frightened and unsure, he can feel her gearing up to run, but he will **not** lose her this time. She doesn't understand and it's overwhelming her, he feels it, but somehow, thankfully, she's not moving. Not yet.  
  
"What do you _want_ from me?" her voice sounds rasping, alien to her. It's quiet, but she knows he can hear her even over the wind. "I don't know what you're _talking_ about, I don't know about any _bond_!" she sounds frightened, confused. He looks so raw, just as he did when he took his mask off for her that day. _Exposed_ , showing her something that was otherwise private, intimate. This is not the burning cold fury she'd seen before, this is vulnerable, it... _sincere_ , she can hear, and wonders if it is her own head or him.  
  
Her thoughts make him shudder, feel almost indignant, angry, even--she thinks him exposed, vulnerable! But it makes her believe he is sincere, or at least lean towards believing it. He takes another step towards her, and now powers his saber down, shutting off the erratic red beam.  
He shut off his lightsaber.  
Rey's eyes are wide and disbelieving, suddenly things are far darker for the loss of the burning red light.  
_The **Bond** , I know you sense it. You're far too clever to not understand this, to be so unsure of yourself!_ His gaze is intense, but he needs her to listen, needs her to _know_!

She can hear him in her head again--how can she hear him in her head? How was this happening, what is he _doing_? He calls her clever--she wrinkles her nose, recalling days in scorching sand and beating sun, days spent in sweat and toil, ended by journeys back to that shithole to try and earn her food, the patronizing voices of larger, hardier beings than herself. _Clever little girl_ , they crooned to her, waiting for her to be _not_ so clever, not so guarded, not so careful. The others thought her soft, foolish. They had all learned, sooner or later. Rey is no soft fool. She will not be now.

Him shutting off his saber helped things. He is glad; puts it away, even, holstered on his belt, not moving otherwise.  
She stares hard, watches him holster his saber, watches the play of emotions over his face, hears the _desperation_ in his voice. He is imploring her to believe him, and she still holds back.  
He sees her face shift, feels a change in her feelings, then he can _see_ it, what she is remembering; lumbering creatures scoffing at her size, hardier-looking scavengers eyeing her plunder with ill-intent, eyeing _her_ with ill-intent. He feels anger rising up in his throat; how dare they look at her that way--but then more flashes: she'd beaten them down, defended what was hers. Built security into her strange home. The others knew better than to try their luck with her. Kylo felt something like smug pride in himself at that; she is sharp, and clever, and _hard_ , his scavenger.  
She hears him say her name and he feels her shiver, feels her confusion, that moment of pleasure she takes from hearing him say just her name, and it makes all the difference.  
She narrows her eyes at him, holding her staff aloft still, short twin blades still alight at each end. Rey eyes Kylo Ren warily as he approaches her, still as death.

"You want to turn me to the Dark, just like you," her tone is a warning: If I speak the truth then you tread no further.

She still hasn't shut off her blades. The yellow turns her skin gold, makes her look like a glowing idol in the rain. He pauses, hearing her.  
"No." It is firm, resolute over the wind and the rain. "The Dark can only teach you so much. There is more to be learned, much more." Even Snoke is blind, relying on the old Sith ways and the Dark Side for his strength. But there is more, there is more to the Force, there is more knowledge, more _power_ to be had. He lets himself feel deep into the strange bond between them and feels her power, her energy, bright and pure and nearly untouched--Luke Skywalker can teach her all he wants, but Rey has known suffering already, and her power comes from struggle, from rage and sorrow and loneliness, and the moments of unadulterated joy that came, that she fought for. He knows her, he has seen her thoughts, her dreams. They plague his own, occupying his mind when he sleeps. He sees her memories, her dreams; he wonders if she has seen his own. The notion is not a kind one, and he feels cold from it now.  
  
"You know what I want," he intones, unbothered by the wind tousling his hair around his face. He can teach her, he can train her, show her what power like hers can _do_. Kylo reaches out his hand to her now, black robes swirling around his legs. The rain is coming, already he feels light mist on his face. Rey feels something not unlike a chill run up her spine; his eyes are a trap, she's been caught and looks up at him like an animal, prepared to tear her own limb away to save the rest of herself.  
"Come with me, Rey." **  
** _You've been so alone,_ he murmurs through the Bond, _Skywalker doesn't understand. He will never understand. He cannot give you what you need, the training you need!_ He can give her the attention she needs, he can devote the time to her that Skywalker cannot.  
Her name on his tongue makes her shiver. She beats herself internally, it should not feel so good.  
He tries to tempt her. Murmurs in her head, suggesting his attention, his valuable time. She screws her face up, but then...

For the briefest of moments, thoughts of Snoke invade his consciousness.

He shoves them out, snarling internally at the intrusion. _No!_ Snoke will not touch her, will not have her! No matter how deep his hooks have sunk into Kylo Ren, Rey will never fall prey to Snoke. Lightning lights up the field they stand in, and she seems to glow before him. The rain is coming down harder now, soon they should seek some kind of shelter. Still, he won't move, not until she does.  
  
There it is--a flash of something, dark and cold as a black hole, the smallest moment of infinite and abysmal _Dark_ , and Rey nearly runs. It's gone just as soon as it comes, however, and she feels a spike of rage in him, staring hard at the most fleeting and subtle play of emotions in his eyes, the sudden rush of emotion she can _feel_...he beats the chilling void back, out of his head--it is an Intruder, she realizes, not him; something is trying to Invade. Her expression falters, confused, concerned, brow knit but frown softened, suddenly unsure.   
He reaches to her again but she senses Snoke, he sees it on her face, feels it in their link, and his arm withdraws slightly. She felt it, felt that freezing, overbearing presence, and now she is doubting.  
She reaches out her hand and he feels himself go still.  
She is...trying to read him, trying to delve, trying to _learn_ \--this is not a skill Skywalker has taught her, this is memory, memory from Starkiller, from _him_. He's already teaching her, if only she knew--  
That presence is not him, too dark, too cold, too much fear--Kylo Ren is anger and passion and burning emotions, and she realizes there is something much darker, much more terrible, that is trying to...no. She feels what he feels, she feels fear, and possessiveness, and... _protection_.  
 _Let me teach you! We are bound, Rey, you feel it, you know it is true!_ Let her come to him, let her acknowledge--he fights himself not to close the space between them, take her with him now. She would understand, he knew, soon enough. There is no cell that awaited her this time, no interrogation. No restraints. He can show her how to be free, how to find control, how to command the Force--he would have her, as he was meant to. She would be near always, his girl and her _Light_ , not blinking from a distance, like some untouchable star, galaxies away.  
  
_Rey... **please.**_  
  
His voice again. He pleads now, tries to make it sound firm and commanding. One hand lifts from her staff on its own, fingers curled in still, not taking his hand but nearly reaching out to him, now.  
"You're afraid..." she breathes, feeling the rain on her skin, letting it wash over her and remind her of the peace, the calm that she needs to utilize, needs to feel to keep her mind clear and focused. Feel. Learn. His eyes go wide and his breath hitches. She's said this before, but now it sounds hushed. She tries to probe as she did so many months ago, in the cold cell, but like him, she tries to be softer. Her hand uncurls, reaching further up, trying to draw the information she wants. Their fingertips nearly touch for a moment, but she does not move closer. "He's...controlling you. He wants me, that's why you're here." Her expression goes cold again. She can feel his yearning and his pull to her, but there is something worse lurking in the shadows, something not him, that has sent him out to retrieve her. She is guarded again, wary of him, mistrusting. She thinks her brief lapse a mistake, her eyes scorch him. _Monster_ , he can hear her, and it cuts.  
If she trusts him, it will be a mistake.  
  
_"No!"_ It's an angry shout this time, ringing through the air like the thunder. He's incensed now, gloved fingers curling in towards his palm. "He will _never_ have you!" he feels fury that she would think this, that her lack of trust would come from belief that he would let her be taken, corrupted. _Like me_ , a whisper of a whisper, not enough in him to make it anything more.  
  
She squints in the rain, loose hairs plastering to her face, clothes starting to soak through. The wind is gusting--Kylo Ren looks like a phantom in front of her, billowing with black fabric and shadow, eyes like the stormclouds piercing her own. There is intensity in his eyes, there is something there like truth, and it frightened her to see--he could be right, he could be telling her the truth, he could be sincere--because she is afraid to believe it, afraid to think that perhaps he is _right_. He is adamant about this presence-- _Snoke_ , she hears it in more voices than one. Han Solo. General Organa. _Their son_. The General--oh Maker, people will be searching for her now. The storm is coming stronger, she hears the angry thunder and she is so far from the base, and Finn worries so much all the time...  
He can hear her thoughts--not 'hear' he supposes, but sense them, at least--she...separates him from the Dark, and he feels something inside that he does not understand.  
  
She is afraid to believe him. She knows he is telling her true but she holds herself back, afraid to let him in, afraid to think he is right. She feels it, she _feels_ it, though, and that is a beginning.  
  
She thinks of his parents.  
  
He feels his chest clench in spite of himself--Han Solo became a father to her over a matter of days, Leia... _Mother_ , he grits his teeth, he feels Rey's admiration of her, her _compassion_ for her, for 'General Organa'. Taken into the Resistance and it is her home now, but they will fail her, just as they failed him. She is not like them, she is like him, and they will never understand.  
"There were no orders that brought me to you, Rey." He uses her name now, again, heady and significant on his lips. Not now, not here, not like this. _She_ brought him here, and she alone.  
  
She snaps back to the current situation when she hears her name. He uses it on purpose now, he knows what the sound makes in her, she finds she can't rebuke him for it.  
But...if there were no orders, if he came here on his own...  
She looks away, forces herself to look away from his eyes, brow knitting. What--she feels the truth of the statement, she _feels_ it. This goes deeper than simple intuition, she can feel what is in him. _How?_ She shakes her head, unsure, confused, her hands both go to her staff, tighten around the cold, slick metal.  
She shuts the twin blades off.

Kylo is so distracted he does not sense the rest of her internal debate, but he does see her yellow blades disappear, disengage. The thoughts flee his mind and he is focused on her, only on her, only on Rey, his Rey, who is giving him a _chance_.  
Kylo Ren's eyes burn with intense intelligence, the hunger of a predator not seeing prey but seeing another like them, circling, deciding to pounce or to bow. He looks at her like someone praying to an idol, like someone entranced.   
Rey doesn't know what to do with something, with someone, like this. What does it mean, what does he intend with it? _Why me?_  
  
She is no one, she was a Scavenger--he himself calls her as much, just a Scavenger, abandoned in the dull, dry wastes of Jakku. Even the people she came from hadn't wanted her.  
Kylo Ren called her _his_. She feels what is in him, and it is possessive, needing. More than any object, more than any form of materialism, Kylo Ren wants to lay claim to her entirely; she wonders, staring into his eyes, if this bond puts that possibility in his grasp.  
What does that mean, what _would_ that mean?

  
She _understands_ now! He feels himself alight with it, she understands-- _Bond, bond bond_ \--he hears it repeat in her mind, and she is confused. She understands what it is, but not **why** it is, she is Unwanted, Abandoned, but...she feels his yearning, and she wonders about it.  
_Yes, yes. Not unwanted, never unwanted--you were a scavenger but you are strong, you are powerful! More powerful than you know, but you **will** know, I can show you, I can **teach** you, Rey!  
_ His words, in her head though they are, make her go still. 

What is he saying? She doesn't...understand? Doesn't believe? Has doubts, that is certain, not that anyone, Kylo Ren above all, can fault her for that.  
He is...  
It dies in her throat, words she isn't even saying, can't even bring herself to say. Kylo Ren is not pure darkness. She...she knows this.  
  
"I don't...I don't understand..." but it is there, it is there and she feels it, feels him hovering around her energy, feels him _in_ her, and feels herself in _him_ , and...  
_Bond bond bond bond_ \--she feels it, she understands; how he had gotten here, how she can hear him, how she can _feel_ him, but how did this happen?  
Her head rises to look at him again and the pure emotion in his eyes makes her insides clench, and for a moment she can't speak. This is not like the way the men looked at her on Jakku, stupid hungry animals, looking for flesh and food. This is not like the way Unkar Plutt looked at her, greedy and hungry for much, much more than she would ever give.  
She swallows, blinking against the water in her eyes, shaking her hair out of her face some, but shaking her head at him.  
"I can't. I can't come with you. This isn't...this isn't right." She couldn't, she can't do it. She can't leave his mother, leave Poe, leave Jess and Snap, leave _Finn_. "You killed Han Solo--you killed your father--you hurt my friends, I--" _No matter what this is, I can't go with you. I won't betray my friends.  
_ Her chest clenches, she feels the sting in her eyes that is not rain and she is so, so glad for the rain now. __Not unwanted, never unwanted_ \--_her breath hitches and she wishes so hard that it wasn't Kylo Ren who said these things to her first, who put these things into direct words for her first, so fervently and so intensely that it brings tears to her eyes.  
Still, she can't go with him.  
She just...can't.  
  
His jaw tightens, he feels rage in his chest, in his arms, wants to lash out, to destroy something, to draw his lightsaber.  
"Your 'friends'--the Traitor, the murderers, the liars--they will disappoint you!" he hisses, and there again is the anger from Starkiller, the hunger to _take_ her, to hell with consequence, he will take his due and she is _his_.  
His rage roils over and makes her shudder with the sudden burn of it-- _Maker_ it's so strong, he hates them, he hates her friends, her new family--failure, anger, rage, sorrow, failure, failure, _failure_ she can't stop the emotions flowing to her from him, they make her ache and burn and her muscles tense with the effort of holding it in. She feels vicious, ready to explode--is this what he feels, is this what's in him, in his head, _all the time_?  
The Force crackles around them as if tensed and ready to pounce, it strikes like the lightning around them, lighting up the link between them like a livewire. He wants her, he is furious and she _must_ change her mind, he wants to command her, wants to make her change her answer, but this just makes **her** even more angry, even more stalwart against going with him. She grits her teeth now, mirroring him, her jaw locking in aggravation. She belongs to no one, she is beholden to _no one_! She has, as she has ever, her pride, and her _freedom_ , and no one, not the Resistance, not Master Luke, not Finn, not _Kylo kriffing Ren_ is going to take that from her.  
He jerks his head around to look, scanning, sensing what she senses now too. Too late, now; there are Others approaching, and quickly. He snaps his head around, glares out into the rain and the jungle beyond, scanning their far perimeter. Soon the Resistance will come for her. They are coming, they are looking for her--her friends that he insists will let her down. She feels smug, glaring at him, staring him down, defiant.  
"My _friends_ are coming for me." The words feel alien on her tongue, even after all these months. Someone is coming back for her. Someone is worried about her--she feels Finn, stronger than the rest, wondering where she is, is she all right? Can they find her?  
  
Kylo turns to her again and Rey is not prepared for what he does. There is no sign of it in the bond before he moves, nothing to warn her, nothing to give her even a moment to run.  
He is there, on her, around her, suddenly. She wonders for the most brief, fleeting nanosecond: would she have run anyways?  
The Resistance--the _Traitor_ , he thinks--is close, worried, where is Rey, why is she not back--the sudden sense of urgency sends him lunging forward, closing the gap between them and locking a large, strong arm around her, against his better judgement.  
  
Too much, he warns himself, too much, too soon, too quickly, you will not be able to leave if you do this, you will not be able to let her go if you do thi--  
Her pull is too strong, and he wants her, feels her acknowledgement of the bond, and knows he cannot leave yet, has to touch her, has to feel her, has to taste..  
He looks like a man possessed. Suddenly his hands are on her face, cold, wet leather on her sun-freckled cheeks, tugging her soaked strands of hair under them. She has just the tiniest inkling to take a breath, and they crash together, and _stars_ , she has never known spiritualism like this.  
  
Her face is in his hands and he is crushing their mouths together. There is nothing elegant about this, nothing soft, nothing sweet or gentle or skillful. It is less a kiss and more an affirmation: she is his, she is wanted.  
Maker, it is _good_. Teeth gnash and he tastes blood, their skin is slick with rain and neither of them are truly prepared for this, too rushed, too much, but it is theirs, this moment and its taste and its feel. This was the most idiotic thing he could have done--the stupidest thing, he is a fool for this and he knows it, feeling the Force swell around them until it threatens to spill out through their bond, overwhelming and gathering as if readying to explode. Now, he will never have peace again. Now, there is no turning back.  
  
There are his lips and hers, hot and insistent and crushing, the sharp feeling of teeth, the taste of blood, burning her mouth. She doesn't know if it's hers, or his, it mingles around her tongue and smears over her lips, but she holds it on her tongue like the sweetest mead. The Force swells around them, it feels like she's caught in a swell on an ocean, a wave nearly breaking, soon to crash over the both of them, and she doesn't know if the result will leave them on a shore or drown them--drown _her_. It's pervading, it sweeps through her, stronger than any rush of power she's felt before; this is the Force of the old tales, the all-powerful Force that the Jedi and Sith bent to their will, that the pilgrims and the sacred villagers speak of. This is more than she felt that day in the cell, that frigid night in the forest. This is something alive, and electrifying, and _awe-striking_ , and for those moments in the storm there are entire galaxies between the two of them, and Rey thinks, wonderingly, what in the stars could ever explain _this_?  
  
As soon as she thinks she can take no more, the energy gathering is going to explode, she's going to be swept under and drown--Kylo tears himself away from her, backing off, wiping at his mouth. He looks hazed, the rain washes at the blood on both of their mouths, and Rey is breathless, the world in brilliant color despite the blackened skies. Her mouth feels raw, the sudden feeling of emptiness acute and chilling. Blood mixes with water and runs down her chin, and her skin tingles as if she's just touched an electric current.   
  
He has to force himself to wrench his hands from her, curses himself for wearing his gloves. His lips are swollen and red, there is blood in his mouth and he wipes his face with the back of one hand as he backs away from her.  
"They will fail you, just as they failed me. You are not like them--they cannot understand you, not even Skywalker." he shakes his head, slow and almost languid from the rush of feeling and energy in the wake of his stupid, foolish act. He looks over her shoulder, nods at the trees beyond. "Come with me, now, or run." It makes no difference. He will be with her again, one way or another.  
  
He offers again.  
She refuses again.  
  
"Stay here with me." She says, before thinking better of it. She knows he will not.  
She knows he cannot.   
She says no without telling him no--but he feels it: this is not a rejection, not entirely. She felt what he did, when they joined like that. He knows she did. 

The rivulets of red on her face are a shock of color amidst the grey skies and her earthen-toned clothing. He will remember her eyes for as long as he lives in that moment, staring at him as he pulled away from her. She turns, and bolts for the treeline.

  
She runs for the trees and he lingers just a moment too long before turning sharply and making for his ship. He feels almost in a daze, still reeling from the power that rushed between them and the dizzying _thrill_ that was her lips--but he manages to make it offplanet and outsystem before slumping back in his seat, throwing his gloves aside and sitting in his soaked clothing, raising a large hand to his mouth only to have it come away with fingers covered in rain-diluted blood, and he stares long at the ruddy color on his pale skin. He can still taste her on his tongue.


	2. A Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First night.  
> Covetous rage. Confusion. Expulsion.

Rey makes it deeper into the jungles than she thought she would before the Resistance finds her. Poe and Finn are in one of the Resistance speeders, Finn shouting when they see her finally through the rain filtering down through the trees. He leaps from the craft before Poe can even stop, yelling her name, sprinting for her and taking her arms, instantly pulling her into a tight hug.

She hardly hears his string of concerns, barely registers that oh...there's still blood on her chin, her lips look nearly bruised, there are notable burn tears in her clothes... Finn practically drags her into the speeder. Poe waves them both in, on the comm with the others searching for her. Others? There are Others searching for her?

Kylo Ren strides back through the Finalizer later as if nothing has happened at all.

Ship logs are easy enough to make disappear--or change, as in this case--and his mask is securely back in place. No one questions why he is soaked through. No one questions where he has been.

His muscles ache later, when he is laying in bed in the dark, after a thorough shower and fresh clothing. Hux is fuming, he's missing some meeting or other, he can feel him on another deck, aggravated in that pinched way he always is. Kylo snorts to himself, running a hand through his hair--irritating the staunch ginger was one of the few joys he took (if he went so far as to call it a 'joy') in his dailies. It is no secret the General and the Master of the Knights of Ren are not on what one would call 'amiable' terms; and neither man makes any show of trying to hide it, either.

General Organa meets Rey when she comes back. She feels a little poorly about not saying anything, about making anyone worry, but then, she's a grown woman--something in the General's eyes says she knows Rey was fine, that Someone blew things a bit out of proportion. The storm only helped that along, really. She gives Rey a smile that's knowing, but still concerned, and asks to speak with her on her way to her room, and the others give them berth. Poe has to lead Finn away: he's been grilling her about the damage since they picked her up.

The General leads them away, and in the corridor of the D'Qar base where she and Rey are alone, she becomes Leia Organa again, and sighs heavily, and Rey knows that she knows.  
"He was here, wasn't he? My son. Ben." Her voice is so heavy, Rey fears it may collapse. Leia seems to trust her, and so Rey gives her the same respect.  
"...Yes. He was." She keeps her eyes on the hall ahead of them. She feels Leia look at her, but now she cannot meet her eyes.  
"The blood..." Rey wipes self-consciously at her chin again, smearing the now-pinkened smudges all over her jaw and neck. She senses Leia knows nothing fatal took place, but Leia is wary all the same.  
"There was an....an accident." She is convinced she is not entirely lying. Leia's thoughts turn to moving the base again; Rey cannot hear them, or read her, but she somehow knows, "No--he won't...they won't come here. It was just him." she sounds hurried, Leia is confused at this but does not question her. The older woman only regards her silently for a long moment, in such a way that Rey feels terribly exposed, and then nods, turning to leave.  
"Go and rest, Rey. The storm is threatening to get worse tonight."

She decides to read, after a thorough visit to her 'fresher and some fresh clothing. She nestles herself on her bed in her room--one detached from the majority of the hustle and bustle; Rey has found it hard to cope with so much noise so constantly. She is accustomed to the night sounds of Jakku--the sand beasts calling in the dark, the flapping of wings occasionally. It is not like footsteps, laughter, coughing...intelligent interaction. The pilots drink and laugh and commune. The engineers and techs talk late into the night some nights, and Rey wonders if she will ever be there, if she will ever be like them, and acclimate to the new Night Sounds here.

Her texts are old Jedi holos, things Master Luke has leant her. She sees the words but they just...won't make sense in her head.  
Everything is _him_.  
She touches her mouth, feels her lips still somewhat swollen. They tingle when her fingertips graze them and she is reminded of the feeling of the Force before, when it was just her and just him. _And just everything between, and nothing, and--_ she remembers his lips, how were they so soft but so punishing? The sharp sting of teeth, the soft flesh between _her_ teeth, and she knows that the blood was not all her own.

Sleep eludes him long enough that he contemplates going to medbay and availing himself of a sedative; but just as he is sitting up, aggravatedly tying back his hair and pushing himself out of bed, something stirs in the Force.  
Something stirs in the _bond_.  
He pauses, focusing on it. Rey--it is his scavenger girl, he settles back on his mattress and roams towards her in their bond, slinking like a nexu through the odd link between them towards her. She is alone, settled in her room, looking over holocrons in her own bed. He can feel her frustration, however: she can't focus. She is...thinking of him. He eyes her there, watching her as if he is in the room with her. Her brow knits, she stares hard at the holo, he watches a hand go to her lips and trail fingertips over the soft skin there. He is smug--she thinks of his lips and he cannot help but smirk. All his previous frustrations of restlessness are gone now; this is a far better alternative to sleep.  
She shudders, and realizes it is not out of fear.  
The holo slams against the far wall of her room and she panics, rushing to retrieve it, praying the relic isn't harmed, regretting her moment of aggravation.

  
He's taken aback by this, but then feels pride swell in his chest, smug pride, his scavenger is so terribly clever, of course she's figured this out by now. He recalls the failed interrogation, her quick comprehension of what he was doing, of how to use it against him, and he knows she is far too much for Skywalker to properly teach.  
She's irritated--throws the holo she's glancing at, but then chases after. She worries she's damaged it, but then...

  
Suddenly something shifts. She is not alone.  
She freezes, and _he_ is there, and she opens her mouth to scream but she is angry, and she knows this is not real. He smirks at her from the wall near her bed, somehow alien but completely in place in her bedroom. This does nothing but annoy her further, she glares at him.  
She _notices_ him.  
Rey _sees_ him, looks directly at him, _speaks_ to him. For a moment, he's stunned that she's realized he's there. At first, she wants to shout--but she realizes what this is. Her eyes narrow and she glares at him, the Force swelters with her anger at his intrusion.  
  
"Get _out!_ " She growls, low and threatening, the holo clutched in a fist. How has he done this? How has she _let_ him do this? She thinks this is some weakness of hers, him being here.  
He steps away from her wall, glancing around her room.  
"Small, but a step up from the gullet of an AT-AT." He ignores her command to leave. He looks around as if surveying it to _stay_ there, but his words make her pause.  
"What--how do you know about that?" she blurts out, more confused and curious than angry. The AT-AT is far away now. For just a moment, she wonders how much the others have taken from it by now. Her heart clenches just a little, thinking of her doll; she'd made it, one of the first things she'd made, one of the first and only companions she'd ever had. Captain Raeh, the doll from scavenged parts had been left behind on Jakku, along with her other few treasures. Part of her wanted never to see them again, still bitter and cold towards the fool she'd let herself be for fifteen years, believing there was a family out somewhere in the stars that would come for her. But they were _her_ things, the only things she'd ever had, until she came here.  
She's annoyed that he doesn't just leave. She stares him down, daring him to do something, anything, but when he _does_ , she's confused. Curious. How does he know about the walker? How does he know about her former home? He feels a strange wave of nostalgia, almost sad, almost wistful, when he mentions it. She lived there for years, he doesn't know how many, how long--he wonders if, despite all else, she misses it somehow.  
"I've seen it." He responds evenly. The walker, the sand dunes. The graveyards she plundered. The outpost, the other scavengers. Not as much as he could have; she tries to keep some memories at bay, and in an effort to stay hidden he hasn't pried so much, but he knows things, still.  
She blinks at his response. He's seen it? Her AT-AT? How? When?  
She squints some, wanting answers but likewise just wanting to be rid of him. He's caused her enough grief for one day.  
He recalls the dreams--her _memories_ \--of her 'home' on Jakku. He does not understand all of it, does not know all of her old spaces and belongings, does not know the significance to anything she has, or had, but while the room itself isn't sizeable, and is probably smaller, if he's honest, it's still cleaner and more...'proper bedroom' than the hollowed-out walker she'd lived in before.

Kylo Ren turns his gaze to her again, regarding her loose hair and plain, much less layered clothing. They might have looked in-place together had they physically been present with one another, both readying for sleep. He looks at her again and she swallows, his damn eyes are just as intense even in whatever this is, a dream, an illusion, a nightmare.  
"I know you understand I'm not here--not _physically_. You called me here." That wasn't quite what had happened, but it came more easily than the truth. He shrugs, "And so here I am." Her eyes narrow again.  
"Why would I ever call _you_ here?" Her words are barbs, dripping with intended poison. She glares at him and her words sting, but he stays where he is. She doesn't understand yet, he thinks, not entirely. She doesn't know what he knows, doesn't feel what he does. Not yet. He nods at the holo in her fist, ignoring her and changing the subject.  
"That wouldn't do you much good to study anyways." Jedi texts. Old rules for an old way; there was so much more than they could teach her.

He nods at her holo and she scowls, clutching it.  
"That's none of your business!" she sounds young, defensive of something she is clinging to, an idea of what she is clinging to, needing to believe. She doesn't make the mental connection, instead just holds the holo close to her and backs away from him. She is studying the Jedi way, she will succeed where he did not. Master Luke believes in her, he is training her. No one would waste their time on a lost cause, not knowingly.  
She sounds defensive, he wonders if she's so strongly clinging to the Jedi ideals, and why.  
He ignores her warning and steps closer to her, reaching out again, just as in the field. She bristles at this, staring him down, backing up and frowning at him. His hand lowers slightly. He hadn't really thought it would be so easy to touch her, even like this, but still...  
He has no right to be here, no right to her space or her time. But she feels it again, that strange smugness in him, the thoughts about her--he thinks so much of her, so highly of her, Rey feels this is dangerous--inevitably, he will be let down by who she really is. She prickles at the thought of his anger when that happens.

He studies her face as she stands there, the freckles dusting her skin, the way her hair hangs around her ears, tumbles over her shoulders. Her lips are bruised--it's light, will fade soon--and she has cuts and bruises from their battle just as he does, but they too will soon fade, just as his will. They've marked one another, and they will again.  
His eyes travel over her face, down her neck and over her collarbone. He thinks of ways to accomplish this without a lightsaber before he can stop himself, remembers how burning hot her mouth is, and feels his skin prickle pleasantly.

"The texts are outdated," he continues, "Relics that Skywalker and that old fool San Tekka recovered from whatever crumbling heap in the universe they did. The Jedi fell for a _reason_." He thinks of his grandfather then, of Anakin Skywalker. Had he foreseen any of this? Had he intended for the ultimate eradication of the Jedi? Their teachings had done nothing but hold him back--only when he opened himself to the Dark had he become the most feared creature in the galaxy. Even now, Darth Vader commanded hushed tones and chills.

Somehow, still, he'd accepted that there was still Light in him, in the end.

To this day, Kylo Ren is conflicted over that truth. How had his uncle, in all of his cryptic mysticism and damnable 'hope' managed such a thing? He couldn't fathom an answer.  
"You have power far greater than any of them here, greater than my uncle understands. I know you feel it, the frustration, the restraint. 'Let go of all mortal attachment, let go of anything you fear to lose,'" Oh he remembers the words. Let go of anything, everything. Banish all feeling, such things made you weak. Ben Solo had been weak, had been fearful and confused. Kylo Ren put an end to that. Now there is anger, and so much more to understand. "Becoming an emotionless shell never did anyone any good. Least of all that fool Skywalker." He recites something that she's heard master Luke say before, though, and she does pause at this. It's bothered her some, the teachings lately. Do not be attached, but show compassion. Anger and frustration are to be shunned, be patient. Do not covet, or desire, or love...  
She wonders if Luke truly believes all of it himself. She thinks of her friends during her lessons, and she knows that no matter what, she would _feel_ if anything were to happen to them. She is impatient some days, challenging him, challenging his lessons.

_"What about Han? What about his death--surely you felt something then!"_  
_Luke sighs, and it is haggard and so, so tired._  
_"It was time."_  
_"He_ **died**!"  
_"We will all die one day, Rey. Some of us sooner than others. The Force is not always so discerning." She remembers clenching her fists. How can he be so stoic? She had only known Han for a few days, and still..._  
_"He was your_ _ **friend**!" Luke nods._  
_"He was. His passing was an unfortunate and evil event."_  
_"How can you--even General Organa--"_  
_"--Is not a Jedi, and does not follow the teachings. She is my sister, but our paths are not the same." Rey remembers frowning, remembers thinking to herself angrily that perhaps her path was not the same either._  
  
He can feel it, then: her turmoil, her frustration with the Jedi Code, her confusion over why she must learn to change herself this way, and he presses a bit further, letting her memory flow between the two of them.

He's silent, seeing what she sees, remembering it as if it was his own memory. He feels a jolt at the reminder of his father, of what he's done, but gnashes his teeth through it. Rey will never understand that, it is too late for Han Solo to prove himself so disappointing to her as well. Kylo Ren takes a step towards her and this time she doesn't withdraw.  
"Emotions are power." He says, and it is softer than anything he has said yet. "The Jedi teach letting go of fear, but _they_ fear feeling like they aren't in control." He looks away, staring hard at her wall, recalling memories of his own now. "It's far easier to manage a student who blindly follows and feels nothing." His voice is near inaudible--she does not need to know of his failings as a child. She does not need to know how weak he was when he was sent away.

_He can hear them still. She stands out the most, she always has. His mother, assuring him softly that this is for the best._ _"Luke is like you, Ben. He'll be able to understand you better, to teach you so that you can be a Jedi like him."_  
_"You have the Force too, mother! Why can't you teach me here--why do I have to go?"_  
_"You're so strong, Ben--you're so much stronger than me, than your father...I want you to become the great man I know you can be! I just..._ I _can't teach you everything you need to know to get there." She embraces him, he remembers her arms tremble slightly. "It's not like we'll never see you again, Ben. You'll be home again before you know it."_

The last of the Jedi will not make her like him. He refuses to let that happen; he feels the confusion and fear and anger in Rey and he nearly reaches out to it now, wanting her to cling to her emotions as well as she can. _Don't let him take that from you--don't give up who you are, what you feel!_

Rey is almost annoyed with how he's ignoring her, dodging responding to her properly, but then he speaks again and she takes a breath, unprepared for how soft his tone is. She regards him warily but not with so much vitriol when he steps closer now.  
She exhales when he turns to look away, eyes widening just slightly.  
She realizes that what he's saying resonates with her, she understands his meaning, and it makes her somewhat uneasy, knowing she at least slightly agrees with him about something like this.  
Master Luke isn't...he doesn't want to just...hollow her out. She knows it can't be like that, he wants to train her, wants the Jedi way to continue, but...

She stares at the ground for a long moment before looking back up at Kylo Ren, standing there in her bedroom, barefoot on her stone floor.  
"What do you want?" she asks now, aggravated but exhausted. She aches, feels so much turmoil in her bones. "I don't want your stupid games, monster." It is half-hearted at best. She can still remember his eyes, the strange raw sincerity in his voice.  
Their lips are both still swollen and colored.  
Not all kisses are like that one was.  
Maybe that's why she can't stop thinking about it.

Ben--Kylo--Kylo, Kylo, Kylo--Kylo Ren's memory hits her like a wave, knocks the breath out of her. It sounds so soft, but the pure significance of it is so heavy, so _much_ \--he looks stony-faced, but Rey _feels_ , and her heart clenches in her chest, her throat feels tight. Mother, mother mother mother, never father again, _mother_....  
She makes a strangled sound, unsure if it's a cry, a sob, a word...it doesn't matter. She swallows hard, staring at him still. How does he do this, how does he carry so much and still hold such anger in him, how is _this_ the man in front of her, how--  
  
He reaches out, and now she is within arms' distance of him. His fingers brush the curve of her jaw--the feeling is tingling and not _real_ , like a synthetic texture, a ghost of a feeling--and he gazes down at her, his eyes hard but imploring, full of emotion that he doesn't know the full extent of, that he cannot put into words, and the only thing that reaches his lips is the only thing that seems to make any sense to him just then.  
"Rey..."  
She hears his jumbled thoughts, feels his fingers press into her jaw. (A strange thing; they press but don't press, it's like a memory of what the feeling should be, there but not really there.) She tenses, ready for some kind of blow, some kind of fight--but it never comes.  
He touches her, and the rages ebbs away. She exhales slowly, quietly, stunned at how soft and quiet things seem again. Did... _she_ do that? She hadn't intended to, hadn't really made a conscious effort to do. Is this some strange ability of whatever this...this bond is that he talks about?

His hand is on her face, and everything is silent. She can feel it somehow, his fingers on her skin. It...is like strange static, real and unreal, a touch and not a touch. He is not there, but he seems to be there--he touches her and yet he doesn't touch her. She doesn't understand all of this, how he can be _right there_ and yet not there at all. She sees him, she hears him, but she can't feel him.  
There is a quiet relief in that. She doesn't know what she would do if she could real and truly feel him right now. He says her name and there is nothing else, no other sound or feeling, and she stares up at him in disbelief and curiosity, drawn in by the look in his eyes. Always his eyes, she thinks perhaps this is why he wears that mask as he does.

"What do you _want_?" It's almost a plea now. Please-- _please just explain, please tell me something concrete, something real, something true, stop this--_ there is too much she doesn't understand, too much she feels, too much at stake, and she is so tired of not understanding things. Jakku was so simple, you scavenged, you survived, or you died, blanched and dry and alone in the burning sand. She knew who she was on Jakku, she knew what she was, what she had to do. But now, she is in a new room, on a new planet. She is someone new, she is a padawan to Luke Skywalker, a member of the Resistance.  
When Kylo Ren touches her, she is _Rey_ , the name that feels so significant on his tongue, she is someone like him, a feeling and a sound, a touch and a gaze--but she has no idea what all of that together creates, what she is, who she is. She wants him to leave, wants to stop feeling so confused, she wants to know who she _is_ again! She isn't the one in his eyes, whoever he is gazing at with so much there, so much intention and emotion--she can't be that, it is too much.

He gazes down at her, eyes on hers like he's searching for something. She wonders if it might be this version of herself that he has in his mind. She wonders if he's ever going to find it.

She stares at him, desperate for an answer, for some explanation, near pleading with him in her storm of emotions. It makes a strange shiver slither up his spine--not the same as anyone pleading for their life, sincere or insincere, this is _different_ , and his fingers trail up the curve of her jaw to slide over the shell of her ear and into her brown hair, feeling it slide through his fingers but not much more.  
" _You_." He wonders if she will accept this is the truth.

His hand travels up her jawline and over her ear, and he threads his fingers into her hair. Her breath catches some and she doesn't move, both stunned by what he's doing and underneath all of it entranced by the strangeness of the entire situation. Rey feels him--she _feels_ his hand, his fingers, even feels his body near her!--but the feeling is somehow not complete. She's so lost to her curious thoughts about it that she doesn't register him leaning in either, doesn't back away, doesn't move, but when she does notice him as close as he is, their faces are almost touching.

He leans in slightly, hardly realizing it at first but then her eyes are suddenly closer, larger, and he remembers this sight, though before he barely had time to appreciate it. He is close enough to her that she would be able to feel his warm breath on her mouth, she could shift just slightly and her nose would brush his. He breathes out a reply to her, speaks it aloud rather than through their strange link.

Kylo Ren lets Rey's hair flow through his fingers, and he is lost in the intoxicating feeling of being so close to her.  
Even just through the bond, her energy and his tangle and meld, calling to one another from across the distance physically between them. If he were there, if he had stayed with her, as she had so carelessly offered...but he could not dwell on such a thing, it would serve to do nothing but drive him further into his already maddening fixation with her.

Rey doesn't move, or back away, or withdraw from him; she gazes up at him wonderingly and he notices for the first time that there is green in her eyes--veins of deep green in the brown he's always known was there. They seem a testament to her very existence, like a reminder of plants pushing through stone, life making its way anywhere. A young scavenger surviving on Jakku.

He feels her breath hitch and it sends a thrill through him. Nothing distinct is coming through, but she is not so hesitant, not so opposed to their closeness now. Not so opposed to another kiss--and that makes his breath go somewhat ragged, his fingers curling around a fistful of her hair, realizing that she's made the link between them more solid, by allowing this.  
Her breath catches in her throat and she shivers, and she thinks he is going to kiss her again. What is this going to feel like? Will it hurt again--stinging, aching pain that crushes her lips and makes her teeth hurt from the collision--will there be the same heat, burning and slick and intense? Suddenly she anticipates it, in spite of what she _knows_ she should be feeling, thinking. His frame looms over hers, large and imposing, and she recalls the firm crush of his arms around her, the strength in his hands when they took her face out in the pouring rain.  
 _My Rey..._ Even this is just above a sigh, but almost aggressive in its possessiveness. No one else will ever be with her this way, no one else will ever understand her this way. His fingers curl into her hair at the thought, nearly pulling her in closer. Their faces are close now, so close; his nose nearly touches hers, if they were really there together he would be able to feel her breath on his skin, the heat from her body. His Rey--only his, only _ever_ his.

His thoughts wash over her when they are closer still, and she hesitates.

He calls her his--but it is not sweet, not affectionate. Not the way she hears lovers call one another, not even in the way she hears the others call animals, or pets. Ceela calls Gadon her darling--she hears Fileen call his tooka his sweet child in his language. This is not that; this sends a chill down her spine, makes her feel uneasy. He _covets_ her, desires her, wants to keep her as no one else can. 

She's opened further to him, and the connection keeping him there with her is stronger because of it. For a moment he can even feel her breath, though the sensation flickers. He leans closer still. She _wants_ to try it again, she feels anticipation...  
Almost as soon as it comes, the feeling is gone.  
She feels an old rage, an old sickness welling up in her at the thought. She thinks of Unkar Plutt, she thinks of--

  
Rey jerks away from his touch, brow knitting, eyes narrowing.  
"No!" Her voice rings out in the quiet of the room, and she pulls away, stepping back from him. Rey _recoils_ from him, and Kylo's arms ache with the emptiness this creates. Before, he had removed himself from her. This is not the same, this is not...not _acceptable_ \--her thoughts are a flurry of sounds and scenes and memories and fears and angers; she is nearly flinging them at him, removing herself from him entirely. "I am _not_ yours!" She hisses, "I belong to _no one_!" She bares her teeth with her words, feeling a bitterness that is years and years old, an anger that has been growing in her since she was far too young. She snaps at him, her teeth flashing as she protests like the threatening fangs of a dire-cat. She is impressive in her rage, though he feels her trying to push him out, and it needles at him through the bond. She remembers something--something is not right, something old, something sickening, that boils her blood and makes her recall old, burning fury. This is old pain, and he narrows his eyes, thinking on that. Someone else has hurt her, someone else has instilled this in her, and he feels himself overcome by it now as well. He wants to find who hurt her, whoever made her feel this stomach-churning disgust and fear and anger; she is his, the thought of anyone else laying hand on her is enough to make him seethe with rage.   
They were less than a breath away, she still feels tremors from the kiss that almost could have been, but she wants to be rid of him--no more of his consuming anger, no more of his possessive arms, no more-- "Get _out_ , creature!" She raises her voice now, trying to push him out of her head, out of her space.

She calls him 'creature' like she is spitting the word at him, and he advances on her.  
" _Who did this?_ " he is demanding, leaning forward slightly. He is all vicious anger now, fists clenched, eyes roaming her room restlessly, as if looking for some sort of clues to what could have happened. "Who was it? I will rend them--I will _gut_ them for it--if anyone has ever laid a hand on you--" He meets her eyes again and clenches his teeth. "Name them-- _name_ them!" At that moment he would scour the galaxy if she so much as gave a single name, even a word at all, just to hunt down whoever had made her feel so disgusting in the past. They will suffer for it, for ever daring to so much as _think_ of touching her. Rey is his-- _his_!

He lunges at her, very nearly sending her backwards against her wall, but she stands her ground. She has faced down creatures that look far more horrifying than Kylo Ren, but he is a different kind of danger altogether and she knows to be wary, but she knows that she has seen him in the dirt by her own hand and she will do it again whenever he thinks he can subdue her.  
She lurches forward now in response, defying his rage with her own. _Try me_ , she says with teeth and brow, _I did not survive the desert by cowering from the storms, I became one of them._ She will force him out with her bare hands if she must.

Kylo Ren is delving into her memories and she knows she can't stop him, not now, he's seen too much and felt too much and he _knows_ , demanding answers, threatening this unseen presence from her past. She will not let him know how this sends a shudder through her, how she thinks of him wrenching the life from her nightmares and feels not vindicated but _excited_. She can't feel that way, not about him, not about this, she can't be so angry, so far into the shade of the Dark.  
She pushes again and feels his presence flicker near her. She seizes the feeling, knowing she is pushing him out, and rams against him with her will.

"Stay _out_ of my head, you filthy fucking son of a bantha!" She thunders at him, eyes flashing like lightning. There are no lightsabers this time, no blades, no weapons, but she will strike him with everything in her.   
She is _glorious_ in her anger--he feels an excited shiver run through him when she pitched forward towards him, like a viper striking. Rey is a _force of nature_ , and he is distracted enough by how enraptured he is by her to let his press slip--and the moment he does he can feel it, and he knows he's made a mistake. He growls under his breath and she is just _so_ close, he could lean forward and claim her mouth again, he could touch her again--but there will be none of that now.

Rey slams her consciousness into him, batters against him with the Force, and he's knocked back now, fighting to stay with her. No--it's too soon, not yet, _not yet_ \--he nearly begs her, _Rey, no, please--_ but it is more angry than sad and more insistent than desperate; he does not know how to beg her, he does not know how to appeal to her compassion, this is not like Snoke, this is not like anything he has ever known, and his inexperience and confusion and _inability_ are infuriating. Rey is relentless now that she's found a crack in his wall, merciless in her blows against his foothold. He sees her clenched fists and her grit teeth and he knows she would swing to strike him down if she were armed with her staff now.

"I said get _out_!" She takes a step forward, making to shove him backwards, but he doesn't budge and something in her seems to just snap, just as it had in the forest so long ago, and Rey pitches back and _swings_. She's a rush of energy when she lunges, quick and deadly and roaring at him like a storm. She is power, raw and unchained, and all at once she rears back, and before he knows what's hit him, _she_ has.   
Her fist makes full contact with his jaw and she is seething, breathing hard, feeling the rush of it coursing through her, but when she strikes him she feels the connection sever and there is a split second wherein they both stare at one another in shock at what's just transpired--and then He is gone.  
  
Her balled fist crashes into his jaw and it **hurts** , sends him reeling, but it works--he manages just one last glimpse at her before their connection is broken and he's left on his feet in his room on the Finalizer, holding his jaw and stunned.

The shock doesn't last long.

Shock gives way to rage, and he is roaring into the dark of his room, lightsaber in hand and burning red, casting its sinister light over his sparse furniture and the fury on his face as sparks fly with each strike he makes into his walls, the chair he's replaced seven times over now, the door. He is angry and aching and full of a howling, hollowing, loneliness that he cannot explain. _Rey!_ He is furious, knows this is futile, barking into the dark, but she is the only thing he wants, and she has effectively cut him off.

For now.

The fact remains there is a bond--it cannot be broken now that it exists. She will withdraw from him but it will not change the fact that she is _his_.  
Later, much later, when he is lying in bed and letting the autofilter remove the smoke from the air, he thinks again of her friends, of the other members of the Resistance, and feels cold, jealous fury. She will let them charm her, laugh with her, _touch_ her--but that thought takes him somewhere darker before he lets exhaustion carry him to sleep. What had she endured before the Traitor had dragged her away from that remote shithole of a planet? Who had she thought of when she looked up at him and saw someone else, just for that moment? Who had hurt her enough to have claim on her thoughts even now?  
He would find them, whoever they were. They would never think of her again without the fear and pain he would bring them--if they were lucky enough to survive. He would become the thing her nightmares feared, he swore it.  
Rey would understand, she would see he was the only one who would protect her, the only one who could understand her and who could be her equal. She would _know_ , if he could prove it to her.

Rey stands in her room for a long moment, feet rooted to the ground, chest heaving, fists still clenched. She doesn't remember feeling the collision, but her fingers hurt, and all at once everything comes crashing back onto her, the aches from earlier, the exhaustion, the utter confusion and uncertainty, and she goes to her knees.  
The tears come before she can stop them or even register they're threatening, and she gasps with the effort of breathing and crying, angry and hurt and so kriffing tired but she is finally alone.

  
So why does it _hurt_ so much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading--if you're still hangin' with me then thank you, famalam, and i hope you're enjoying things!


	3. A Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion.  
> Strange discoveries. Uncertainty. _Magic._

Rey had secluded herself for two weeks after the incident, only coming out every few days to silently take rations from the kitchens and then retreat again.  
The storm that had built up and broken over the two Force-users that afternoon is still raging on and off outside--one of D'Qar's strange weather phenomena, the other rebels have been remarking on it ever since she came out of her room again.

General Organa has been worried, but has mostly left her to her own devices. She contacted Luke after the first week, all the same, and so when Rey emerges from her room looking tired and worse for wear the third time, she is met by a frazzled-looking Finn, flanked by a concerned Poe and followed then by the General and her brother, who let Rey's friends see to her first.

Finn is a flurry of words and exclamations, looking Rey over worriedly and trying to see if she's been hurt or looks sickly at all. She looks _tired_ , mostly, if a little pale in comparison to her usual glow. Finn leans close, taking her hands and asking what he can do, what is wrong--she doesn't have an answer. What can she say? There is nothing...nothing he could understand, she is afraid of that rift forming, the disconnection between them. Nothing anyone can understand, she thinks, her stomach twisting some.  
Poe is more relaxed about all of it, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder and giving her a friendly nod. She'll be fine, he says--nothing a little food can't fix. She manages a smile at that, but her expression fades when the two males leave to find her some food, and Rey faces her master and the General.  
"I called him here," General Organa admits softly, and Rey knows she has good intent. Master Luke looks concerned, but reserved, holding his judgement until he speaks with her, she knows.  
"Let's sit and talk a while, my padawan."

 

Two weeks of nothing.  
Two weeks of emptiness.

Kylo Ren feels at breaking point by the end of the eighth day. Snoke is beginning to sense something, he interrogates his apprentice about the strange shift in the Force he feels, but Kylo can say nothing for himself. He will not find Rey. He will not know of the bond, he will never have Rey. For the first time in days, he is grateful for the wall she has put up between them; at least she has hidden herself effectively from Snoke as well.

Later, however, things are different.

During the 'day' hours in the blackness of space, he has distractions. But the artificial 'night' becomes intolerable.  
_She_ is the only thing he can think of. He has spent so long now with the underlying presence of her with him always that now she is gone, he feels her absence like a missing part of himself. She is a phantom limb--he imagines he feels her still there but when he reaches at his most desperate moments, there is nothing. No...not nothing: a _barrier_.  
He wonders how much sleep she has lost trying to keep herself sealed off. Is she tired, is she still aching, has she sought help in warding him away from her yet?  
If she has...there may be no way to break their bond, but is there a way to block it effectively? Is she trying to wall him off from her, trying to separate them for good? He paces, his disquieting thoughts becoming restlessness and exhausted wakefulness. When he retrieves sedatives from medbay, his dreams are merciless in their torment; her, only her, only _Rey_ , like sunlight she feels, like _life_ , and when he wakes again nothing feels the same, nothing is real or alive, but Rey is in his dreams, and so when he can, he forces sleep upon himself again.

He knows the dreams are not real. These are his own creation; his Rey is not this gentle, never to him. She is not so sweet or so soft, but he takes her sweetness desperately, drinking in what he can from the illusion. He has nothing else now.  
During a meeting he thinks how easy it would be to take a ship to D'Qar and return again with her. She would fight him, he knows--she would never come willingly, not that way. The only intelligence he draws from the briefing is that the Resistance has begun to tighten their guard; his mo...their _General_ surely knows of his visit by now. She is not taking chances.  
A cruel smile forms under the cold metal of his mask. General Organa is no fool. She understands what Rey is. She won't let the girl be harmed--or worse, taken from them.

His restlessness turns to anger after the first week. He sleeps, he wakes, he trains--maintenance crews murmur about his recent outbursts, they worry what the workload will become. What will he break next? Their pay is far too low for this, what if he begins to take his infamous rage out on them, next?  
But at the end of the tenth day Kylo Ren retreats to his room, and is not seen for days.

He _sleeps_. Waking hours are maddening, he still cannot feel her and the Order squabbles like children over what move to make next in their game of war. Sleep. Wake. Reach. Sleep.  
Rey still eludes him. The hours pass and he feels the fury turning him to hard, harsh stone.

Finally, _finally_ , a stirring.

 

She isn't sure what to tell him. How does she explain that she has a bond with Kylo Ren, that she feels drawn to him-- _attracted_ to him, she thinks in shameful disgust with herself--that he was able to gain entry to her mind here from so far away?  
How does she explain the rage she felt, the all-encompassing rage and the burning she felt deep in her bones? How does she tell her Jedi Master that she craved violence and bloodshed, that Kylo Ren beckoned to her and she wanted to take his hand, let him draw her to his chest and...

It is misery, trying to explain things, trying to keep her thoughts straight, trying to word things properly, in a way that will not completely shame her for everything.  
She skirts mentioning the bond Kylo Ren spoke of, the bond she _felt_ , the bond that she feels even now--she feels so weak, so tired. Sleep has nearly completely eluded her for days now; she rests fitfully, constantly trying to keep her wall up, to keep _him_ out.  
Things seem stable for now, but even when she _can_ sleep she dreams of him, she dreams of that dark afternoon in the field, rain on her face and his lips on hers. The heat and metal of blood in her mouth, the wind blowing at her clothing, the smell of burnt cloth and sweat, and it is more real than her waking hours.

Luke, for his part, listens to her vague explanations in pensive silence, watching his padawan thoughtfully. He knows there is much more, that there are things she is keeping from him. He knows he cannot force the information from her, but he worries--and it is only amplified when she speaks up again after a long, fidgeting silence.  
"...Luke...are there such things as...as _bonds_ between, ehm, Jedi? Force-users?"

There is a long moment of silence and Rey feels herself go cold, knowing she's said too much, given too much away. Suddenly her lips are still bruised and she smells of _him_ and he has branded her somehow, Luke must know, he must be able to see it--  
"Why are you thinking of such a thing, Rey?"

Something shifts, something flutters, a thin beam of light, a sliver of something silvery and alien in the dark of his thoughts.  
_"...such things as...as **bonds** between, ehm, Jedi?"_  
He cannot breathe, cannot move, something will disturb it, if he does anything it will alert her and She will be gone again and he cannot, _will not_ let her go again. He hears another voice, _someone is with her_ , he realizes it is Skywalker and focuses as best he can on her, _Rey_ , with everything in him.  
She is afraid, nervous. She wants answers, does not know how to get them. She wants to learn about Force bonds--she is so unlearned, still so young, she doesn't know what she should--but she does not want to tell Skywalker everything. She is afraid of what he will say, what he will _do_ if he discovers them. He feels...strange...something like optimism.

Oh no. Oh pfassk--oh kriff, oh what's she done, she doesn't know what to say--but then there is something, something soft and quiet and low, the first thing that clears the bluster in her head.  
_Revan and Bastila Shan,_ he murmurs to her, soft and low. _Listen, Rey, please._  
She does.  
  
She feels the storm of fear and uncertainty still in her mind, and she does not know the names but she knows this is an answer.  
"I...there were texts, and I...I read about Revan and Bastila Shan." Luke's brow knits. Rey doesn't know what else to say, she swallows some, visibly fidgeting again. "It...it seemed they had a bond, and I...haven't read anything else about something like that."

Finally,  
"A Force bond is a very old, and very...intimate...concept. Masters and padawans were known to develop a kind of bond as they grew to know one another better, but _Darth_ Revan and Bastila Shan were...different. Bastila saved his life with the Force--it forged a bond between the two of them, a strong bond." The older Jedi is silent for a long moment. "A bond is a powerful thing, but...dangerous. You open yourself to another being, draw power from them as they draw power from you. It is not an easy thing to manage, Rey. I would not suggest such a thing, even to better teach you." She feels her throat tighten some, hears the caution in his voice. If he knew the whole truth...  
What has she gotten herself into? If Luke discovers the link between she and his former student--his _nephew_ \--what will he do? Rey keeps it inside, simply nodding at his response.  
"...Of course, master."

She does not get the answers she hopes for, but she leaves the crack in the wall, leaves the thinnest hole for him to feel her through. _Rey, Rey, **Rey**..._

It isn't until Luke leaves and Rey is alone again that she lets out a long, slow breath, trying to decompress and failing.  
The past weeks have been...bizarrely miserable. At first she had sequestered herself to try and figure out how to keep up the barrier between she and Him--but then that had turned to strange restlessness, an odd, unsettling feeling of complete loneliness, like she hadn't known since Jakku.

No...that is wrong.

On Jakku, she had been alone, but she had always been alone. There had not been this kind of loneliness because she hadn't fully understood, not for a long, long time, just what loneliness was. Now she feels _alone_.  
She'd thought she would take joy in his absence. She hadn't realized how she must have been feeling his presence for some time now; she'd thought of him in the span of time before they'd actually physically seen one another again--but she hadn't realized that there was something deeper at play there.

There is _nothing_ now. No strange fluttering, no quiet rustling in her consciousness, no _him_. She feels angry with herself after she figures out that she _misses_ him, raging alone in her room. She cried in frustration, pounded at her wall and threw things she'd been tinkering with. It is _frustrating_ to feel this way, she is angry with herself and angry with him and glad that she is so secluded so that no one can hear all of her outbursts.

Now she sits on her bed and thinks of meditating. Her stones rest around her in a half-circle on her sheet, smooth river stones that she's collected while she's been here, and wandered around the base. With the Force, she turns them over one by one, looking at the tally marks on the undersides of them. She doesn't have her wall anymore, she can't log her days the way she had before--it has become habit, marking the days off. A daily routine: wake, go about her business, return for bed, mark the day. She's begun using stones; easily found, and she can use them for other purposes as well. Now she uses them to train.  
The moment she opens herself to the Force, something is different. She opens her eyes again, brow knitting. What...

She tries to focus again, center herself, let the energy flow through her--and she hears it. _His_ voice. Her name.  
_**Rey...**_  
Her muscles tense. He is here again, how is he here again? Her eyes fly open and she looks around wildly, but he isn't in the room, isn't with her.  
Her heart beats so hard now that she can hear it, is acutely aware of each thrum in her chest. With a shaking breath she closes her eyes again, feeling around, testing her barriers. What does she hope to find? Does she _want_ to feel him again? Does she _want_ him to be there? Want to let him through again?  
She feels the crack a moment later, and her breath catches. He is there, feeling for her, gently brushing against the tiny bit of her energy he can reach. Rey goes still, her mind racing. What does she do? Does she beat him back again, seal her barrier? How much longer until she slips again?  
Or...

_" **Rey...** "_  
_"What do you want?"_  
_" **You.** "_  
_Those eyes, the stormy grey-brown eyes that knew her, that called to her, that called her ' **mine** '..._

He waits.  
It is all he can do, wait and see. Does she sense him, does she know? He feels her settle, she intends to meditate. If he isn't careful and she wants him gone, she will certainly notice now.

She is in and out of his reach--he is desperate for anything he can get, pressing as carefully as he can against her barrier just to try and feel her again.  
Her energy is so inviting, her consciousness beckons him closer, calling to his through the thin cracks in her wall. He nestles against it as best he can, like an animal looking for warmth, craving her presence, craving _Rey_.

She opens herself to meditate, and he feels the cracks widen. Startled some, he backs off, fearing her rejection, watching her warily from the distance. She is fooling about with riverstones, he watches her place them around her on her bed and slowly use the Force to turn them over one by one. His brow knits slightly; what are those marks? He isn't sure, nothing in her told him anything concrete, just that she has been making them every day before she goes to sleep. They are...a strange 'tradition', it seems.  
She seems to sense him--he retreats immediately, frustrated with this stop-and-go, but too hungry for her to completely stop. He waits, crouching further away from her, letting her relax again. She feels the shift, and he feels _frustrated_. The bond is meant to be explored, utilized, _enjoyed_ \--not sealed off. They could be an amazing power if she would just let him in...  
_Rey..._ it is a sigh, aggravated and needing, wishing for so much more than he has been given.

She _hears_ him. He feels himself stiffen--what now? She is intuitive, she knows when something isn't right; a survival instinct he knows she's learned over a long life of needing to keep herself safe. _Oh Rey...oh clever girl, there is nothing to be afraid of--the galaxy should fear_ you _\--_  
He feels her brush against him, and immediately he fears she will banish him again. He tenses, ready for a battery again, but it never comes.

 

"...Kylo Ren."

His breath hitches and he feels stunned--she does not let him in, but she does not push him away. He is hesitant, careful, quiet.  
"Rey." Her name is honey on his tongue, but her voice is long-missed, and sends a shudder through him. His Rey--his scavenger girl, he's missed her presence like a drowning man misses air; feeling her so close is enough to leave him gasping for breath, begging the Force to grant him more.

Rey feels uncertain, she feels _worried_ , but stars...his voice sends a shiver through her, and she feels herself slipping again.  
There is something so tempting about Kylo Ren, something that calls to her and draws her in. He exerts some kind of magnetic pull on her, and when their two energies touch, even just the slightest brush...

Rey feels a kind of static tingling when he brushes against her, like fingertips on her skin, prickling at her and making her shudder. He says her name like a prayer, and she thinks of his eyes, the marks on his face, the softness of his lips, and she feels the breaks in her barrier start to give way even more. She doesn't fight it now.

Kylo Ren can feel Rey under the careful touch of his energy and it is like sunlight on his skin, like silk brushing against his fingers; he wants to take hold of her again and feel her crushed against him in his arms, so small but brimming with power that rivals his own.  
But she is far away now. To go to her would drive her away, to take her with him against her will would be a fool's errand.  
Even consumed by his need for her, Kylo Ren is no fool.

He takes what he can, now. All he can do is this, and pray for more.

It is electricity to touch even her consciousness, her Force signature. He imagines touching her skin, but knows this could not come close.  
Her wall between them crumbles a little further, and she allows it to. He is optimistic, hopeful even. This is what is meant to be. This is what _will_ be, for them, between them. The bond was forged for a reason, they will not just let it go to waste.

"It was you, wasn't it. You gave me those names. Revan and Bastila Shan." She takes a breath, settling into a meditative pose. Her door is unlocked, she does not want to move, but if anyone enters or disturbs her, meditating is a far better explanation for what she is doing than 'softly speaking to Kylo Ren through a metaphysical bond we have'. She knows she should not be doing this. Certainly not while Luke is here again, but without a doubt this is a terrible idea and she knows she will regret it.  
Her curiosity gets the best of her anyways. He nods at her question; the wall continues to break down and as it does she comes into better view, like they are face to face again, viewing one another from behind a window.  
"Yes," he nods, "I did. I heard...I could hear you speaking to him. Skywalker." His uncle. She is so curious, she wants to learn, wants to know. She denied him before, but he can still help her, he can still _teach_ her.

"Who were they? I asked Luke...he wouldn't tell me much." She doesn't know why she thinks he will give her any real answers, but she can't stop herself. A million things she should be asking him, but this is the only thing she can call to mind. How does he know their names, why are they the ones he mentions to her? Was he listening to her conversation, even then?  
How... it suddenly startled her some. How had he known he would hear anything? Has he...has he been _waiting_ for this?

The wall crumbles further with her curious inquiries. She wonders if he was listening the entire time. She wonders how he knew to listen to her, was he waiting?  
_If you only knew,_ he thinks, watching her. She looks so tired, so lost. She does not look like herself, and it sickens him to think of her this way, to see her this way. No, this isn't right, she should not look this way, she should not feel so exhausted, so thin and disquieted. He wants to reach out and touch her, to feel her firm and real under his fingers, to feel her warm skin and know that she is vital and alive and still herself, still strong.  
"They were Jedi, centuries ago. Long before Anakin Skywalker was born, before even Palpatine, during a time of great struggle and war. Revan was a powerful Jedi who was corrupted, became a Sith Lord. Bastila Shan was sent to confront him, but things...changed. She saved his life, healed him from near death with the Force, and formed a Force bond between them." It is...condensed, to be sure, but will serve for now. "Later in their lives, he saved her, as well--and married her." He speaks quietly, thinking of the texts he has read, the historical accounts of the Shan lineage. A powerful line, but the family tree seems to have died out centuries before. Still...their bond, their relationship, changed things for the Jedi Order--had even seen one of their descendants exiled for her agreement with her ancestors' way of things.

Of course Skywalker did not want to speak of two such individuals to Rey, not if he suspected that his nephew had anything to do with her. The bloodline that flowed from Bastila and Revan had been powerful and should have carried on, but by accounts it did not. The Jedi Order had frowned upon such relationships, and by the time his grandfather had become one of them, the threat of expulsion loomed overhead with each passing moment he spent with Padmé, secret though they were. If things had been different...

Kylo Ren's eyes meet Rey's, and he wonders.  
With a Force bond he will be able to find her, anywhere she is, so long as she does not hide herself from him. He can feel anything she feels, see, hear, taste anything she does. Rey is meant for him, she has to be--why else would the Force place her in such a relative position to him, give him this link to her? Their power individually is already in excess of any Force-user that has been born since his grandfather, but _together_...  
Snoke, however, has thought of this as well.  
The ancient creature has already confronted him about Rey's existence, long ago, before their first battle, when their bond was still new and thin.  
_"Bring her to me,"_ his Master had commanded him, _"We have been given a fortuitous gift in this girl. Mixing blood from such powerful sources could bring the galaxy to its knees, in the proper hands..."_

At the time, he hadn't given it much deeper thought. It had been a command to be carried out; if the time came and Snoke commanded that Rey become host to a new bloodline of Force users...  
Presently, it makes him shudder.  
She will not ever be within Snoke's grasp. He flexes his fists some at this--she will never be used in such a way. His Rey, all of her power and her intoxicating presence, she will stay far, far out of the wizened, grizzled old creature's reach. He will ensure it however he must.

She feels him restraining himself.  
It's a curious feeling, when she is so used to him acting on whims around her, all raw power and unbound force of will. It is...somewhat comforting, thinking that he is holding back to keep her more at ease. She says nothing and keeps it pressed back, hidden just to herself, but her opinion of him increases just a bit in that moment.

Slowly, slowly, little by little, he comes into view--sitting in his room as she is. The differences between their settings is stark; his is dim, lights out and fixtures all chromed and sleek. She knows where he is, it isn't surprising to see, but it does stick with her some that this is his bedroom, his private space. Without really realizing it she wonders how many others have seen the inside of this room, not that it particularly matters.

She is studying his room behind him. He feels her eyes roaming over things, but there is not all that much to see. Things are sparse, even more so after the past few weeks. His chair has been removed, the shelving taken down for now. Things are being reconstructed only when he is not in the room--but recently there has not been much time for it because of this. She seems intrigued, quietly curious, and the truth is quite simple: no one else comes into this room. Maintenance crews aside, that is.  
  
He nods, slightly jerking, as if he's trying to rein-in his enthusiasm. So then he _was_ listening; she was at least grateful for the answer at the time, she'd needed something, and in reality she'd never heard of Force bonds before he'd mentioned them.

He responds to her, slowly, carefully, and she listens with interest, but cannot help taking in his appearance. He looks more exhausted than she's ever seen him, their battle on Starkiller included. She studies him as he responds to her: his eyes are heavy and darkened, his movements are slow and then quick, jerking ever so slightly as if he is keeping himself awake.   
He can feel her eyes on him, she takes in his appearance and seems discerning if not mildly concerned. She thinks he looks tired--a kind thing to think when she herself looks so exhausted. He feels his mouth twist up into a sardonic sort of smile, unsure how to physically respond and a little frustrated with having to stay settled in his own space for now. He needs her to trust him, to open the bond to him again. It is just trying to manage such a thing that is taking far too long.She can hear it in his voice, the fatigue, the heaviness, and she wonders what the past few weeks have been for him. Her eyes widen some at the ending of the explanation, however.  
"Married her?" she blurts it out, brow rising. "I thought attachment was forbidden--the Jedi didn't allow themselves to--their members to..." She pauses some, gathering her thoughts. She doesn't like just prattling on, but speaking before fully forming thoughts has started occurring more now that she is on the Resistance base; it is so hard to keep up with conversations sometimes when the others expect responses and she has no idea how to just _talk_ like people are apparently supposed to.  
"Luke told me the story, about his...your grandfather." Somehow it is strange to link Kylo Ren to anyone. "He married your grandmother in secret because of the Jedi Council. I thought that romance and marriage was forbidden." Her brow knits slightly as she tries to piece things together. Rey sees the strange smile on his face and feels the frustration in him. 

Does a Force bond mean they will eventually be...married? That makes little sense, marriage is just a construct. There are scavengers on Jakku that live together and work as teams, never married, still just the same as if they were. Then does the bond mean they will fall in love? Equally as strange to her, it has apparently existed for months now and she doesn't feel anything akin to 'love' for Kylo Ren. He, on the other hand...he is...trying, for her. She stays quiet now, letting him speak and explain. She finds that his voice is somewhat relaxing when it is this soft--the low baritone reminds her of far-off thunder and rain.

She seems to be stumbling over her words. She is unsure, speaking before she's gathered her thoughts. She stops herself, and he watches her curiously. She feels...uncertain, thinking of how she is expected to speak to people now. She is inexperienced with this--he feels surprised, and he realizes he shouldn't. She's been alone for so long...it seems natural that it would bring about problems coping with such a different environment.  
"They are not the only Jedi to have married, like my grandfather, yes." He nods, taking a slow breath. "The Jedi Order believed that attachment clouded your judgement, made you reckless, foolish." He glances down, sighing slow and quiet. "My grandfather married my grandmother because he loved her despite the laws of the Jedi Order. She was a senator of the Republic, but they loved one another in spite of circumstance." He explains his grandparents' relationship, and she wonders if this is something he has found himself contemplating very often. Luke doesn't speak all too much about his parents' story, she wonders now if that has to do with the Jedi views on love and loss. Does he resent his parents for loving one another? She wants to ask him more about this, now, but something tells her she may not get the answers she may want. What would Luke have to say about it, about her questioning him on that particular subject? Already she knows that Leia must know...Rey knew the General, at least well enough to know that she had a keen intuition--and Kylo Ren...beneath all of it, he is her _son_.

He looks back up at her now, studying her face. She is deep in thought, he wonders what about.   
"They, however, did not have a Force bond. My grandmother was not Force-sensitive."

Padmé Amidala had been many things, but she was no Force-user. Anakin had loved her for her strength in other ways, and her beauty besides. He watches Rey think about all of this, and thinks of his grandmother, the beautiful senator and former queen of Naboo, a woman he will never know. She had brought his grandfather to his knees...but had they been allowed to be together openly how different would things be?  
Rey is different. Rey is already linked to him by something deeper than simply affection--Rey belongs to him, with him. There is no Jedi Order to cast them out now for such a thing.

He is jarred from his thoughts by the soft feeling of Rey probing his consciousness.  
  


She squints at him for a moment, tilting her head slightly and regarding him somewhat warily. Is he telling her the truth?  
She reaches out, brushing aside some remnants of the wall she created to probe his energy. He is lost in his own thoughts, but he is sincere. Something is bothering him, she sees it burning in his dark eyes when their gazes meet, feels it in his consciousness when she explores. She's brushed past the small remainder of her boundary, and she is careful, hesitant, gentle, even. He goes still when he notices it, as if holding his breath. Her 'tendrils' of energy are careful and soft; she doesn't want to disturb him or do anything to _hurt_ him. He feels strangely small and cautious, letting her feel around this way. He is careful, trying to stay still for her, quiet, his eyes on hers. She looks bothered by what she is feeling, however, her brow knits and her mouth curves into a small frown as she leans forward some, peering at him questioningly.   
"What's the matter with you?" Clearly something is wrong. His fists clench, she feels a tremor run through him. If they are linked now, she can feel what he does, be it good or bad, joy or misery.  
Rey does not want to be miserable.

  
He blinks some, trying to remain still and calm while feeling her probing. There is little he can hide from her this way. She is quiet and careful and _gentle_ with him.  
Kylo Ren feels as if he should be indignant about this, but her softness is a welcome comfort, and he is so tired.  
"I am...tired." He admits, and feels himself relax some with the admission to her. His eyes meet hers again. "The lack of your presence has been...difficult." It is clearly not easy for him to say this to her, but it is the truth all the same. Let her trust him, understand that they cannot hide anything from one another. They must use the bond, enjoy the bond, take strength from one another's presence.

She meets his gaze and there is so _much_ \--she stills now herself, and when he replies now, she can hear the exhaustion in his tone. She watches his shoulders sag, feels him relax some, as if admitting this to her is a weight off of him. It is grudging, but she feels...oddly pleased with his honesty. Still...what does he want to come of this? What can she do, what does he take from being able to sense her?  
Rey can feel him relax under her touch. It's strangely calming in itself, knowing she is able to comfort him. Briefly she thinks of how foolish and traitorous this seems, but she sees his eyes and settles in on her bed. This is one moment amidst a sea, a lifetime, of others. No one has to know what takes place here and now, and Rey can take care of herself.  
She takes a breath, exhaling quietly.  
"I'm tired too." She admits, knowing he knows already. She understands why he looks so limp now--just saying it aloud makes her feel like a weight has been lifted.

He watches her relax as well, feels the tension in her abate some in front of him. She still holds back, but her statement then is a careful start to something that he hopes will continue to grow.  
Rey looks him in the eyes then and her voice is so weathered, so exhausted. He understands the feeling with everything in him, and now he does reach with the Force to offer her the knowledge that he _knows_ , that he understands, that he is tired as well, she does not need to explain everything, but her words now make his breath rattle as he draws it in.  
  
She keeps her voice even and quiet.  
"What do you want, Kylo Ren?"  
Her eyes hold his, firm and asking him to give her a real answer, to tell her more than just the simplest explanation. She sounds tired, worn out; she just wants to understand all of this, she wants to stop feeling so conflicted and restless and _worried_.  
He may be her enemy, but he is like her, as well. He was right, before--they understand one another, in this strange way.

He does not look away from her, keeps his voice low and soft as hers.  
"You." Again the same. Nothing has changed; but he knows that she wants more. Kylo Ren does not blink, does not look away when he tells her he wants _her_. Rey likes it, she likes this blatant and straightforwardness; she tells herself she is tired and he is tired, and perhaps this will change after she sleeps.

He swallows and does look down now, struggling to explain himself to her.  
"You need someone--you need better information, better teachings. Skywalker can't explain things to you the way he should, he doesn't--can't--understand you." She doesn't need to speak up for him to sense it in her: _'But you can?'_  
He leans forward slightly, putting his hand up in front of her, palm facing her: an invitation, slow and tentative. He is testing things, she knows, but she is tired as well and shutting him out has done nothing to help either of them, it seems. She lets him in, and this time when the feeling of _him_ brushes against her and she shivers, she doesn't feel so guilty.  
His breath rattles at her question, and his eyes are on hers, and _Force_ they are so burning and heavy, she feels her chest tighten some.  
"We have a _bond_ , Rey." He insists, brow knitting slightly. "I know you comprehend this. You aren't a fool. We understand one another better than we understand ourselves." His eyes are intense, focused on hers, his voice lowering some. "At least, we could." He stumbles over words, tries to explain, give her a better answer. He looks down, brows knit, mouth forms a line--he is frustrated some, but he is _trying_ , she can see it. The unspoken invitation still hangs in the air. _My hand for yours. The bond, Rey. Lonely girl, scavenger, Force child, Rey._  
She isn't sure she agrees with him entirely about Luke, but she does know that he is right about their bond.

She gazes in silence at his offered palm, her fingers curling towards her own palms some.  
His eyes are on hers and she feels her breath hold. His hand hangs there for a long moment and Rey thinks about this, feels his energy against hers, feels this _bond_ between them.

By all accounts she is his enemy, should be his enemy, is a taboo to him, the girl he should not, can not, touch. He remembers first meeting her, the barest brush of his hand against her, and he knew she would be a problem. He recalls Snoke musing about the possibilities 'the Girl' presented, recalls him ordering, albeit offhandedly, that no one would touch her until he had proper plans in order for her.  
Kylo Ren has never particularly been one to follow orders to a tee.  
Certainly he carries out duties as instructed, but even then he allows himself some amount of leeway. So long as the initial parameters are met he can do as he likes otherwise. In that instance, Snoke wouldn't know--and within the bond, they cannot be truly _touching_ anyway.  
Rey debates for a painfully long moment. Kylo Ren tries to be patient, tries to hold himself back from reaching and taking her hand, something, anything--

 

Her hand slowly, hesitantly moves to press against his.

 

Immediately, she is aware of two things:  
First, his hands are much larger than hers. His fingers could curl over the tips of hers some, and his palms are more broad than hers, firm and warm.  
Second, the moment their hands touch, the Force seems to crash around them. They touch this time in agreement, both of them choosing the contact, both of them wanting to meet this way. There's something like a rush of electricity and emotion; she can feel _so much_ suddenly, all of it washes over her and then is gone, and his palm against hers feels _real_.

Her hand meets his, and it is like the first breath of air to a man drowning.  
It fills his lungs and takes the breath from him simultaneously, he doesn't know how, he isn't arguing with it. The Force breaks over the two of them like a cresting wave and he _feels_ \--he feels what she feels, what he feels, sees what she sees and so much more--and then it is gone, and he is left sitting, facing her, chest heaving with the effort of holding all of it for that one moment. He stares at her, amazed and excited; she's made a choice, small though it is, and yet so enormous all the same.

His palm presses to hers and he feels her fingers press slightly against his and he marvels at how small her hand seems. Her skin is so warm, fingers toughened by years of work in the sun and sand and heat--  
Her skin.  
He can feel her skin.  
His eyes widen slightly at this and he leans just slightly closer, staring at their hands for a long moment in awe. How...can he feel her skin? Even before when he touched her this way, he could not feel her. He can feel the cool air of his chambers on the Finalizer around him, feel the cool touch of his bedsheets, but before him is Rey, the warmth of her room, the yellowish light illuminating everything. They are clearly in the bond, there and far away, but he can feel her skin on his hand and _Force_ , he can hardly breathe.

Her eyes are wide and her mouth is the smallest 'o' in surprised, fascinated wonder. She can feel his skin this time, not like the strange feelings before that were only half-real. This is real, this is his skin on hers. She can feel the warmth in his palm, the small planes of rougher skin from training, the muscles in his wrist and hand and arm tensing at the sensations flowing through the both of them. She stares at their hands for a long moment, her fingers pressing slightly into his, still not entirely convinced this is real, that this feeling isn't something she's just dreamed up on her own.  
Her eyes flick to meet his after a long click, still widened and amazed. She can still see his bedroom behind him, and see hers around herself.  
_I can feel you, I can feel you, how is this possible, how is this real? It feels real, how does it feel so **real**?_ Even silently, her words flow breathlessly between them.

Her breath is shaky and her voice trembles some as well, overwhelmed and so amazed. A smile forms on her lips in spite of herself.  
"How are we _doing_ this?"

When his eyes flick back to her face, to meet her eyes again, it's like another wave slams into his chest.  
She is smiling. His Rey...she sits in the light of her room and she _smiles_ at him and she marvels at their contact, breathless and amazed.

Kylo Ren is undone.

He shakes his head, swallowing, trying to speak with a dry mouth.  
"I don't know. I haven't ever...this isn't supposed to be like this." He blinks rapidly, shaking his head, brow knitting slightly and relaxing again. "I don't think it is, anyways." A mutter, an admission of not knowing. His hand shifts against hers and she is still there, still solid, still warm. Her hand is there against his, somehow, over the distance but the great closeness of this bond. She is overcome by all of this, all of the sudden emotion, the amazing fact that somehow, he is in his bedroom and she is in hers, and she can feel his hand on hers. She can't stop herself from smiling, this is so impossible and so amazing that she can't help it. She didn't ever think the Force could _do_ something like this. She stares up at him, wondering and awestruck. Is this both of them? Is this what they can do if they move _together_ , rather than against one another?  
His words break the silence again, just as amazed as she feels. He doesn't understand either, he is just as surprised as she is.

"But I feel it too." An echo of something from before, something that still holds true, much more true than he knew back then. He gazes into her strange brown-green eyes and feels sunlight, warm and soft. "Maybe I'm just dreaming."  
It slips out before he means it to, half a laugh, wry and cynical. Something this soft could only ever happen that way. Her awe is a beautiful thing to behold. Kylo stares at her, watching the play of emotions over her face even as she looks back at him. How can someone who has survived such a harsh and unforgiving place be so...like her? Her smile is more mystical than anything his ridiculous old uncle could come up with. He is convinced this is a dream--how else could she possibly be smiling at him like this?

She smiles, but it falters some when he laughs--if you could call it a laugh--and she feels....strange. Why does he think this is a dream? She hesitates when he mentions it. Her smile fades some, he wonders if he's ruined the illusion. He feels heavy again, sighing, but she speaks up again and he's surprised. Her voice sounds so soft, so unsure.

She reaches her opposite hand up now, silently asking for his in turn.

  
"Why would you think..." Has he... _Have you been...dreaming of me?_ Her voice is so small, cautious. She isn't sure she wants to hear the answer. She already knows.

It comes across the bond, she seems too hesitant to speak it aloud, but she doesn't run away from it, or from him. He holds her gaze for a long moment, taking a slow, deep breath and watching her offer her opposite hand to him.  
He _has_ been dreaming of her.  
_Almost every night, ever since Takodana._ He sends across, needing her to know, needing her to understand. Their hands meet again and he lets out a shuddering breath. _But I knew you before that. I knew you when I saw you. You were the Girl--the Force sent me visions of you long before we met._

He'd seen her in visions when he meditated, when he slept. She was touched by the sun and blazing with Light, and she saw him too--at least...he'd thought she had. When she hadn't recognized him without his helmet that day, he hadn't known what to make of it. He'd thought he'd been wrong, but it _had_ been her, she _had_ been the one he'd seen. The Girl, the Force child who brimmed with Light, who would come to him...

She knew the answer, she told herself she was fine with just understanding it, knowing she was right, but his voice comes across the bond and she feels how insistent he is. He wants her to know, he wants her to understand, feels that he needs to say it in no uncertain terms. Rey feels her heartbeat speed up, thinking of him dreaming about her; almost every night? What does he dream? What does he think of so often, about her?

She remembers the heat of his gaze, and she thinks she might have an idea.

But...he'd seen her before Takodana? Her brow knits some and she tilts her head a little, gazing at him questioningly.  
"How did you see me before Takodana?" She asks, curious, but she realizes...she saw him, too. The lower levels of Maz Kanata's castle, the lightsaber, the visions...  
She blinks rapidly, shaking her head some, trying to remember. _Visions--I saw **you** in a vision, I saw our fight in a vision, but I didn't know it..._  
Luke has given her some lessons on visions, but she hasn't had any like that first one, not since that day. She saw him, she remembers the dark mask and the _rain_ and the blazing red of his lightsaber crackling through the darkness...

There is power between them. She feels it coursing through her and it feels _good_. Still...there is something lurking in him, something dark and cold, and Rey wonders if it is drawing the same thing out of her.  
Her fingers spread against his and she studies their hands, utterly fascinated by the sight, the feeling. She studies his face as he follows her gestures, fanning his fingers out with hers. Their skin shifts, there is nothing about this that feels _un-_ real. She swallows, shutting her eyes for a moment. She knows he's right. This isn't like Luke's power, this isn't like any power she's ever felt before.  
"Is this what you wanted to teach me? What you _want_ to teach me?" she meets his gaze, her voice quiet. "Luke never...I never feel anything like this when we train."  
He nods some at her question.  
"Yes. _Yes_." She's beginning to understand, she's beginning to see what they can do together. What they can _be_. "Skywalker does not understand this--even his power isn't like yours.... _ours_."

They don't have a bond, that probably made most of the difference. When she trains, she feels the Force in her like an extension of herself; she can move things, push and pull and feel--but this is different. This is electric and strong and amazing, this is the Force that the pilgrims spoke of, the inhabitants of the Sacred Villages. This is the Force of the old stories, not just moving things and feeling energy.  
Her stones have begun to float around her, the elation she feels through her contact and her _bond_ with Kylo Ren influencing the things around her. The room feels warmer, her stones float placidly around her, slowly rotating here and there as if suspended in water. Rey glances around, her smile back in place on her lips. This is the Force she has dreamed of. This is _magic_.

She is so taken with the energy of all of this, so amazed by the power generated by their contact. She looks younger to him, like a delighted child, testing what she can do and how it all feels. He wants to teach her, wants to train her the way she should have been for years now. She deserves to know what she is capable of, what all of her immense power can do.  
Her fingers spread and she smiles, her small hands fanning out against his. He mirrors the gesture, watching their fingers shift against each other. She is still here, still solid and warm and he can still feel her hands. He thinks this over and over again, _still here, still here, still here with me_ , not entirely convinced this isn't some desperate dream his exhausted mind has created.

Slowly, hesitantly, his fingers curl around hers.  
"He is too far gone to the 'Jedi' ways. The rules and laws and _limits_ of the Force and how it 'should' be used--but the Light and the Dark exist whether we utilize them or not." His gaze darkens some. _The Jedi sought to eradicate all darkness, they thought my grandfather would be enough light to drown out all shadow if they made him like they were, but they were **wrong**._ There has to be some kind of _balance_ , not an end to the dark. That is impossible, as it was even for the great Jedi Masters.

Her stones--the strange, marked stones--have begun to float; he watches them around her for a moment and feels a small tug at the corner of his lips, almost a smile. Her energy is leaking from her, effecting her surroundings. He learned how to control things himself long ago, but her delight, the power coming off of her, it is contagious, and his own room seems warmer for it, more comfortable and less sharp. He holds her hands in his, leaning towards her just slightly.  
"All of that energy--you feel it, stronger than you feel when you're training with him. I can help you, Rey-- _let_ me help you. Let me teach you."  
  
His hands curl around hers, and she lets them, but she does not reciprocate.  
She _listens_ , instead. She listens, and contemplates, and feels. The Force is a strange thing, she's known that from the beginning. _Nothing seems to go the way it should, everything is different, everything is as the Force wills it._ She closes her eyes, opens herself to the Force, to the energy and wisdom that Luke always tells her to draw from. Kylo Ren is right, and she knows.

She is curious--he keeps her hands and takes a breath, glad that she is not pulling away, glad suddenly for so much, and if this is a dream then he will be all the worse for waking later. A vision--she had a vision, he can see it, just a trace of memory, something that was unpleasant, that frightened her. A vision, touching the lightsaber for the first time. He knew it was her...it was always her, there would, could, be no one else. He sees flashes of things, not enough to fully tell what they are, but he hears his own lightsaber and pounding rain and he thinks this is familiar but he cannot tell how. Still.  
She _saw_ him. He is right, she had _seen_ him, before they met, before he had shown her his face in person. She had just seen his mask before.

She listens to him. Takes all of it in, what he's saying, what he's suggesting, and he nearly smiles, watching her. Her hands are warm in his and he has to resist bringing them closer, to fully inspect them, to look over and memorize every detail of her fingers, her palms, her knuckles.

There is Light, when she shuts her eyes and opens herself. _"The Light...it has always been there."_ She remembers Maz Kanata, and tries to look further. It isn't easy--she's been trained to follow the Light, to let the bright white glow lead her. Her fingers curl against Kylo Ren's hands and she silently asks for help, hearing his voice echo in her mind as he speaks, as if she's further away than she already physically is. She sits back and opens herself to meditation--he's startled, not having expected this. Can she even do such a thing? They're already in a metaphysical state, can she--  
He can feel a sudden wave of Force energy, and the answer is a resounding _yes_. He doesn't know how she's doing it, but she is, and the power that washes over them is immense, and intoxicating, but the feeling of her hands curling against his is enough to call his focus to her again.  
_I understand **balance** ,_ she sends slowly, _it's....like sunlight. Out in the sand, on Jakku...there was so much light, always, but even then there were shadows. There's never light without darkness.  
_ He blinks at her when he hears this, watching her open her eyes to look at him again. She feels...strangely jittery, like she's shivering at a rapid rate, vibrating with anticipation. __  


She opens her eyes and meets his gaze, and she feels almost like trembling from the strange feeling of excitement, foreboding. The rush of it, the fact that she knows she should never do what she is about to do.

"I want to learn."  
  
His fingers nearly crush hers and his mouth goes dry and he is overwhelmed. He nods, slow and deliberate. It is all he can manage for the moment. She wants him to teach her, she wants to learn, she wants to know. His Rey is asking him for help, she is finally coming to him as he has longed for. A student, his student, _his partner_. His, in the Force and in pursuit of knowledge. _Rey_...

"Then I will teach you everything I can."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a format shift; not so much bolded text now.  
> as always, thanks for sticking with this! thank everyone for all the views and the kudos and the comments! you guys are fab and we love you all.  
> hope this chapter didn't disappoint!  
> as a note: anyone interested can find me on tumblr at the same username! c:


	4. A Development | Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploration.  
> Becoming familiar. Uncertain emotions. _Frustration._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shorter, nsfw chapter. this one from Rey's POV.

Rey remembers sleeping better that night than she had in months.

She won't say anything about it, of course. When she emerges from her room again a day later she seems more herself again; she smiles again, waves off the worries of the Resistance members who express concern.  
"Just a little sickness I think. I might take a little ride offplanet soon, I think it's the climate, really...." Which is reasonable, they agree. Of course it is, she's from Jakku, of course it's much different here, how could they have forgotten that?

She has no idea how this is going to work.

Luke eyes her with disquiet curiosity for a few days. She doesn't tell him about her encounter with Kylo Ren, she doesn't tell him that she has another teacher. The less everyone else knows about this the better; the only person she feels truly guilty in regards to the silence is _Leia_ \--somewhere within Kylo Ren is her son, and Rey wishes she could tell her something, anything...but the death of her husband, and her son's father, is still fresh. Rey thinks of this sometimes, and it guts her. How can she do what she is doing, how can she be such a...  
_"Traitor!"_  
She hears his voice echoing in her head and sees the animalistic look of fury on his face from that night and she questions everything, questions herself, how can she do this, how can she _do_ this--

But then she feels it, like a strange tentative hand, like he takes her chin in his gloved fingers to get her attention, to pull her from the desolation and the disgust.  
_You'll understand one day._

She wishes she kriffing understood _now_.  
She snaps at him sometimes, wrenching just out of his grasp.  
_You sound like Luke, your stupid 'mysticism'--_ this always draws out his rage. Rage is something almost cathartic to feel; she runs sometimes when she feels this. The first time, she is walking with Finn and BB-8, trying to focus on their conversation, and his anger suddenly spikes, and Rey grits her teeth, digs her heels into the ground. He's jealous of Finn, she feels it no matter what he insists upon. She fights it, Finn is her friend, but some times it is harder than others and this time when Finn puts his hand on her arm she fights against batting him away. It isn't what she wants, but she wants to move, wants to fight, wants to release it all--she launches herself from her place, lurching forward almost unnaturally. Finn stares after her, yelling in confusion, but she just _runs_.  
It's good, too. She sprints into the forest surrounding the base, leaps over fallen limbs and rocks, dodges low branches and hanging moss, crashes through underbrush and little streams. She runs to run, to feel in motion, and it helps. She feels, hears, sees him searing and slashing and _punching_ \--

Running is good. She knows how to run, and at the end of all of it, the rest is good, too. She thinks maybe it even helps him some as well.

Still, she knows she needs to figure out some way to temper things so that she can better cope with his anger. It is so _intense_ when it strikes--  
Three weeks into...whatever this is, whatever they can call what this is they're doing, training? Visiting? Bonding?  
Rey isn't so fond of that one.  
They're getting better at it, at 'visiting' one another. With each time they 'meet', she feels things get easier and easier to manage, more and more natural to exercise. Every meeting feels more _real_ , even if she still hesitates at the thought of touching him, or him touching her. She's been into his room on the Finalizer now, inspected his somewhat bare quarters, gazed out his window at the vast, endless view while listening to him tell her anecdotes from historical accounts he's seen and read from the Old Republic. He's visited her room again as well; he's sat and watched her tinker with her staff, with computers and instruments the other Resistance members have brought her to work on for them. He gives her history lessons, she shows him wiring and building, and then somewhere in-between, they practice forms, old and new, until they are covered in sweat and breathing hard, and Rey feels things stir in her belly that worry her and that she refuses to act upon, watching his chest heave and the glint of sweat on his brow, the flex of muscle in his arms, his back...And then they stop, and Rey quiets her breathing and settles her heart again in her own space, wiping her face and swallowing down things that are too much and too unwelcome here. Presently he's visiting her, pacing over her floor while she sits on her bed, her day-counting stones around her on the sheets, a few of them hovering in the air. She traces a finger along the curve of one of them, making it slowly spin in front of her with the Force.  
"Luke is leaving again soon. This time I'll go visit him--I can't guarantee much time whenever I do." She says this almost offhandedly, focusing more on the stones at the moment. Kylo Ren's pacing pauses, he turns to shoot her a dark glance.  
"Afraid I might _tattle_ on your location if I find it out?" His tone is scathing, he clearly expects a confrontation. Rey rolls her eyes.  
"No." It comes a bit more quickly than she expected, but more surprising still is the sincerity of it. She doesn't think he'll betray her location, she just wants to be careful. He stops a few feet in front of her, turning to look at her in mild surprise. He wasn't expecting this answer, his dark eyes study her face as if afraid he's going to find some trace of insincerity to suggest she's mocking him, or simply placating him. He finds none.

Rey understands more, now; he doesn't like when she's gone for any extended period--being gone, having to shut him out, leaves him alone with himself, and the dark, cold, imposing presence surrounding him there. More and more now, she's felt it, felt _him_ \-- _Ben Solo_ \--somewhere underneath everything, and it terrifies her some nights to think that he is there, suffering, afraid of discovery at the hands of that icy terror Rey feels from time to time, _Snoke_. She knows that Kylo Ren is afraid, she knows that at least somehow when they are open to one another, he feels more stable.

Kylo Ren gazes at her for a long moment before taking a few steps towards her on her bed, and Rey finds herself half-hoping he will come to her.  
"Rey--"  
There is a knock at her door.  
Rey looks like she's completely forgotten there is anyone else in the universe. Kylo Ren looks murderous.  
It's Finn, along with BB-8 and possibly Poe from the sound of it. He's asking her to come out, to come see some new terrain simulator with them--but she declines.  
"Thanks--maybe later, though? I'm doing something right now." She can feel Kylo stiffen, feel his hackles up when he knows it is Finn. The room goes tense, she knows it's his doing, and she tries to defuse it, but then her door _opens_ , and she knows that's not an option anymore.  
"...You know, I did have that closed for a reason..." She tries to sound like Kylo Ren's rage influencing her isn't making her want to crush one of her rocks with her bare hands.  
"You haven't been yourself lately, Rey--what are you doing in here? We're all worried about you..." Finn takes a few steps in, clearly feeling guilty already about opening the door, trying some to respect her space now. BB-8 rolls in beside him, beeping at her with obvious concern, and sure enough, Poe pokes his head in her doorway as well. Rey sighs, keeping her voice placid.  
"I did say I'd come and see it later, didn't I? I just want to spend a little longer meditating right now...." She says it so calmly, as if she can't feel and hear and see Kylo Ren knocking over a chair, a table, summoning his saber to his hand back in his own room. It's hard to focus on her friends again, but she does manage to convince them to go finally, before returning her focus to him.

He glares at her from amidst the wreckage that was one of his walls now, and she knows there will be no more lessons for today. She folds her arms over her chest, frowning.  
"I was handling it. You could have just stayed calm."  
"He interfered--you _let_ him just interfere like that! Why didn't you lock your door? Why does he feel he is allowed to just let himself into your room like that?" Kylo is seething, leaning over her slightly, glowing red saber in hand. Rey scowls.  
"He's my friend--he was worried, I took care of it! You destroyed this entire wall, why couldn't you just trust me to handle that?" She refuses to be intimidated, stands her ground. He grits his teeth, fingers shifting around the handle of his saber. He moves to strike and Rey feels cold, thinking he may swing at her, but he turns and severs the back of the fallen chair with an angry shout, his back to her as he yells still.  
"He feels entitled to your time, to _you_!"

Rey's eyes flash at this and her voice gets dangerously low.  
"The only one who feels _entitled_ to me is _you_." She growls, a chill in her tone. He rounds on her, just as angry, leaning close.  
"He will _never_ have you--not the way he wants. I see it in his eyes, you try to ignore it, but you can't!" he snarls, and Rey gets into his face, raising a hand, unsure if she wants to wave it or strike him.  
"You only see what you want to see! You don't have claim over me, Kylo Ren--I belong to _no one_!" He grabs her by the wrist, suddenly too close.  
"You think I _want_ to see that? You think I _want_ to see him look at you that way, watch him wanting to touch you?" now it is his turn to sound dangerously quiet. "You think I want to see anyone else touch you?" Rey doesn't like when he gets like this. She doesn't like the insecurity she can feel in him, so afraid that she is some possession that can be so easily lost. She doesn't like that the crush of his hands makes her skin prickle, doesn't like that the tone of his voice makes her shiver. She does not belong to anyone, she will never be anyone's property--but Kylo Ren looks at her and everything in him screams at her that she is _his_.  
"You don't need to see _anything_." her voice is a low, rumbling warning. She walls herself off in the bond just for a moment, knowing he will probe, knowing she doesn't...doesn't really mean it. Separation is difficult, and she has grown used to the company. His eyes are wide and she feels a clashing of anger and pain in him that makes her draw in a deep breath. Still, she doesn't back down.

Anger wins out. He bares teeth, his voice a hiss.  
"For the _Traitor_ \--you would shut me out for the _Traitor_?!" Rey's fingers curl into fists.  
"His name is Finn--and he is my _friend_ , no matter what you might think of him!" The urge to fight him is overpowering; they are in the bond and lightsabers mean nothing here but she would hit him again if it would get her point across, and she isn't sure how she feels about that.  
He leans in close, too close, but she refuses to move. She is just as angry and he will not intimidate her, least of all over this.  
"You care for him that much--"  
"I care about him enough to not let you disrespect him! He's my _friend_ , he's not trying to _take me away_! He doesn't even know about this!" She realizes a fraction of a second too late this might have been too much. His expression changes.  
"He doesn't know?" Rey takes a breath, her voice quieting.  
"How could I tell any of them--how could I risk that, if Luke found out, if your mother--" His fingers tighten around her wrist and she shuts her eyes, inhaling sharply not from the pain of his grip but from the emotions she feels in him now. He releases her abruptly.  
"Then keep it hidden. They don't need to know." But there is some kind of satisfaction in his voice that Rey decides not to remark on.

Nights later, when she is alone in her room after finally leaving to spend time with the others, apologizing to Finn for putting him off, Rey lies in the dark and finds herself thinking of Him again. Her thoughts are tumultuous and she thinks of his face, the anger and the hurt, the burning intensity of his eyes. The sincere passion in his voice; she recalls the strength in his arms, and his large hands, and Rey finds herself shutting him off haphazardly for a little while.  
The walls are up, but he's still the only thing on her mind.  
Rey takes a shuddering breath and ensures her door is locked, breathing rhythmically in the darkness of her room. He is not there, he is far away and cannot see or feel or hear her, but she can so easily envision him as if he were right there, hovering over her, eyes burning into hers just as they always did.  
  
In the dark, her hands are not her own, sliding under the thin shirt she sleeps in and brushing fingertips over her breasts, the toughened skin rough against her sensitive nipples, sliding into the soft underwear at her hips, fingers slipping past the curls hidden there and she is wet already, shuddering at the touch, thinking of leather that smells of clean spaces and synthetic atmosphere and faintly of things burning, of long fingers on broad hands that can so easily cover her own.  
Rey knows lust, Rey knows desire--living alone for so many years did not mean she had never been curious, never explored her own body, but this...  
Her toes curl into the thin sheets on her bed and she tucks her knees up, shutting her eyes and swallowing back the mixture of guilt and temptation she feels when she recalls his voice, close to her ear, so close she might have felt his breath, the vibration of the growl in his tone, on her skin.  
_My Rey..._  
Fingers grow more insistent, more bold, her legs stretch and her hips tense and buck. She chokes back a whimper and her back arches and Rey knows the warm, firm press of his form. Strong, warm. Reckless, insistent. She can bring it to mind, but not enough, not real enough. She bites her lip in an attempt to stay quiet, writhing on her mattress with the effort of finding release, trying to hurry, trying to help herself along but her imagination alone is just not enough and her climax is less satisfying than she would like, and that fact is frustrating for so many reasons as she lies back in the dark and breathes deep, trying not to think of how wanting she is.  
  
When she allows him back in later she finds he's waiting, confused and aggravated.  
_Why did you shut me out?_  
_I just...needed some time to myself._  
He takes in her breathy voice and the strange mixture of emotions and reaches out, feeling the warmth of her room and the tousled sheets on her bed, and Rey shoves him out of her consciousness when she feels the surprised reaction in him.

This is dangerous territory. Rey tells herself she should definitely take the trip offplanet when Luke is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual: thank you all so much for reading, i hope you're enjoying everything!  
> a quicker, shorter chapter; delving a little into Rey-territory here. soon we'll have the same up for Kylo.  
> the first bit of nsfw! there's going to be more, as a warning, and the rating may change. hopefully that won't scare anyone off!


	5. A Development | Kylo Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploration.  
> Becoming familiar. Uncertain emotions. _Frustration._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shorter, nsfw chapter. this one from Kylo's POV.

Kylo Ren remembers sleeping better that night than he had in months.

In the days to follow it is difficult to focus on much elsewise. Snoke is notably absent; he knows there must be something he cannot sense at work for the disfigured creature to be so at bay, but he decides to take it as it comes. _Rey_ is a far more pressing presence, and entirely more welcome besides.

They test the bond at first. Meet halfway, at the strange between-space they occupied when she agreed to learn from him. A meeting of light and dark; always her room and his, they seclude themselves from anyone and everyone for these 'visits'. She calls them 'visits', and he finds he likes the term. Visiting her. She is visiting him.  
When they are not visiting, he can still sense her; he lets her energy, the small trickle that is always with him now, flow like a comforting undercurrent, always beneath everything else, kept close so that no one else might sense it. Not that he worries about just anyone else.  
Only _him_.  
Only _Snoke_.

Rey, in the meantime, has her doubts about all of this. She questions everything, feels tremendous guilt about her agreement with him.  
When they meet, slowly strengthening the bond, she is energy and power, she is curiosity and the low hum of excitement. She is _eager_ to learn--and it is so easy to teach her, to show her, through this link. At first it is stories--he can recall old tales from what Skywalker had managed to recover from what was left of the Jedi Archives, and Sith stories he had learned as well. Snoke himself did not call himself a Sith, but he knew a curious amount about their history and their lore, Kylo wonders, not for the first time, just where the wreck of a creature came from.  
Slowly it turns from simply retelling these things to her to _showing_ her--he can remember the holos, and so from his memory he can show her. It is strange, divulging these things to another instead of taking them himself, but Rey is a rapt audience, and clever enough to make note of things he'd found significant himself. He is fascinated by her curiosity; she recognizes things he finds that he missed, she sees things in a different light. Her opinion is a welcome thing, and he finds that he looks forward to their meetings for more than just being with her, before long.

But Rey...she feels _guilt_. Guilt for agreeing to let him teach her, guilt for their bond, guilt for...  
She hides from him what she can. It is frustrating; he wants to allow her her privacy, but desires to know everything about her, everything she thinks and feels--when he hits a wall, it does nothing but aggravate him. Even more so when he feels the frustration and the guilt and the _disgust_ she feels with herself--he goes to her in those moments, seeks to distract her, pulls her attention away. Their visits are mutual and so their touches are more real, more substantial, but when he intrudes on her it is the hollow feelings and the static sensations again. He touches her face and it leaves him wanting, but at least she feels something other than desolation for a while.

She is more fiery than he'd given her credit for as well. Rey isn't at all like the scared girl he captured on Takodana, the uncertain girl he interrogated, the confused and angry girl he fought on Starkiller. Rey is twenty years of sand and grit, she is beating sunlight and acute knowledge of machinery, the smell of sweat and heat and grime, aged oil and chemicals and dirt. She curses-- _Force_ , he isn't sure he's ever heard a woman curse like she does--and she clashes with him over anything and everything. She challenges his teachings, what if he is wrong, what if there is another way? What if she tried _this_ instead? And when they argue it becomes heated more quickly than he's ever encountered with anyone else, even that ginger sycophant Hux. It is infuriating-- _she_ is infuriating, and she manages to get under his skin in ways he thought he was far beyond by now.  
They rage at one another and he feels her run; she runs, where she is. Runs through the base, runs through the jungle surrounding, runs to try and release everything, and he finds his release the same way he always has. Saber in hand, leaving sear-marks and wrecked machinery in his wake. He takes to using his fists, even; the Traitor touches her, one day. He is quietly listening, waiting for her to return to her room, waiting for her to come to him, and the Traitor interrupts. He is too close to her, he speaks too much, too softly, smiles too brightly at her. Touches her arm. Kylo Ren snarls into the bond and his saber is not close enough--later on, Rey comes to him when he is nursing a bloodied fist. She just scowls, but he knows she knows what took place.

Nearly a month after they begin this, visiting, training, learning, he is visiting her. Their bedrooms are shared space now; she is the only welcome presence in the otherwise cold space, but he far prefers to come to her. Her room is warm, brighter, small, but intimate.  
He paces that day, thinking about everything and nothing, debating over what to talk to her about that afternoon, but he senses something brewing in her. Rey sits on her bed, fiddling with her scored riverstones, and after an intolerable silence she speaks up at last.  
"Luke is leaving again soon. This time I'll go visit him--I can't guarantee much time whenever I do." She says it as if it is a footnote, just an aside remark instead of the important statement it really is. He stops in his tracks, turns to look at her. Why hadn't she said anything before? And--limited time? His eyes narrow, thinking of her walling herself off again, cloaking herself away from him. It chills him, the feeling is gutting, the suggested isolation reminding him of hideously familiar loneliness. He snaps at her rather than wallowing in the cold upset of it.  
"Afraid I might _tattle_ on your location if I find it out?" He takes a few steps towards her, knows he is baiting her. Part of him wants her to think of what she is suggesting, cutting him off, and another part of him wants her to go, leave him--  
"No." He stops. She is sincere, honest. The briefest of probes tells him she only worries about Skywalker, what might happen. Nothing more. She is simply...telling him the truth. 

He gazes at her for a long moment, and she gazes back. She senses something in him, she speaks with silence, with her eyes, tells him she does not intend to simply leave him alone.  
Not that he is ever really _alone_. There is always someone. Always Snoke. Always.  
_I am still here, I am not leaving,_ it seems an alien concept to him now. He starts to move to her, inclined to touch her just then, to try and touch her, at least.  
"Rey--"

A noise, a knock on her door. He stops immediately, feeling everything in him go still. _Who--_  
Rey looks startled, but he wishes he were there physically, even if only to dispatch of the interloper himself. How dare someone intrude on their time--  
_The **Traitor**_. He positively snarls, lip curling, brow knitting. Of course it would be him...  
Rey tries to remain calm, but even after she dismisses him, the Traitor _enters her room_.

He can feel his eyes go wide, and he feels, in the physical world, a small light fixture near him crush inward and collapse, clanging to the floor. The Traitor tries to speak with her and Kylo Ren has to retreat, knowing if he remains all it will do is serve to frustrate him more and anger Rey with him even more than he knows she already is. Still... _still_...  
Tables crash over, chairs are dismantled. He throws books and holos from a desk, and then his hands find his lightsaber.  
Rey finds him this way, in the remains. She tries to reprimand him, but he will hear none of it.  
"He interfered--you _let_ him just interfere like that! Why didn't you lock your door? Why does he feel he is allowed to just let himself into your room like that??" Why would he think such a thing--but Kylo knows, he knows the look he has seen in the Traitor's eyes when he looks at Rey, he knows the tone in his voice. But the Traitor is there with her, and he is far away, and this is how it must remain, and that infuriates him.  
Rey disputes this. The Traitor is her friend, he sneers and she shouts, refusing to back down. She is so naiive, she is so blind to it, to what the other male wants from her, and he knows it, recognizes it.  
"He feels entitled to your time, to _you_!" She had been calling him her friend, she had allowed him access to her life, her time, her _room_ , apparently--but Rey will not listen.

Their exchange is more than he intends, but she does give away something that makes him drop the subject.  
The Traitor doesn't know about their bond.  
He finds his fury abating somewhat, lets Rey have space again. Let the fool think he can keep her, let him try to win her. Rey will never be his.  
She knows his relent on this is too easy, but she doesn't chase after for now. Their visit ends after that for the day. Over the next few days their time is limited, mostly in the middle-ground. She is hesitant to let him into her room, right then. He doesn't press--let her have her space for now. She hasn't blocked him out, and so long as she does not he will let her be.  
Until she does.

He isn't expecting it, but senses something change, and she is suddenly not there. He goes cold, sitting in his room, and searches for her. What's happened? Where is she? He reaches, probes, searches for her--runs into a wall, finally. She's...shut him out? Why?  
When her barricade crumbles later on, he is irate, though the new shift in her energy makes him pause.  
Warm. There is warmth, mussed bedsheets, the slight sheen of sweat, a heady scent in the air of her room, and the warmth pervading is familiar, furtive, sate--  
He nearly has time to react when she thrusts him out of her head. He stays away for the time being, but cannot mask his surprise.

Later, he probes while she sleeps. She is quick to hide but he has dreamed of her for too long to feel any sort of shame. He visits her in her dreams, this time. It is a strange experience, more hazy and shifting than waking visits. Everything seems more lucid, brighter, warmer, easier to manipulate still. Rey dreams of the ocean, of stars, of green trees, of rainstorms--He sees it, feels it, and the moment he connects with the dream, the _memory_ , Rey becomes aware of his presence there. She is dreaming of the day in the rain, the taste of blood and the heat of their lips. In the dream he relives this with her, but in the dream, the rain is softer, and the sting of their teeth is not so sharp. He reaches a hand to her hair, holds her face close to his. He licks the blood from her lips and strokes a thumb over her cheek, opposite arm firm around her waist. She doesn't resist in the dream, he marvels at this. She kisses him, she takes his face and brings it to hers, her fingers are slick on his cheeks and her mouth is hungry and insistent, and he wonders if this is him manipulating her dream or if it is all her own doing.  
The rain on the field gives way to warm stone walls and dry sheets, and he no longer cares whose doing this dream is, though he is glad for the autolock on his door in the physical world as he fumbles to free himself from his pants under his own tousled sheets. He can see her so clearly, remember her scent--though it is laced with the smell of blood and rain--he pretends he knows the warmth of her skin under his hands and against his chest, imagines her soft under his touch. _Rey..._ and whether she hears it or not, feels it or not, he contents himself with just this for now. In his vision, Rey keens and writhes for him, burning around him and calling for him, and when he reaches his climax it is good--but hollow.

Rey is the last thing he thinks of before he finally meets sleep himself. Tired and damp with sweat, he curls around an empty space in his own bed, thinks of a girl who tastes like toil and sunlight and power, and sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thanks everyone for reading! hope you're enjoying things, and i hope this lil' bit of nsfw doesn't scare anybody off!  
> mirroring rey with kylo, these two need to get their shit together omg.  
> again: there's gonna be more nsfw in upcoming chapters--stuff more explicit than this. the rating will change to reflect that and there'll be warnings as necessary.  
> and as ever, you can reach me on my tumblr, where i go by the same username!


	6. A Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dagobah_.  
>  A trial. Overload. _Panic_.

He is lost in her, after the first few weeks.

The bond has strengthened significantly since they began--to the point they hardly need to put any effort into communicating, and muting one another is much easier as well. Rey was firm in figuring out how to do that. _She_ is the one who insists on muting one another-- _I am tired of feeling your_ tantrums _all the time,_ she tells him, but it is not as cold or as stern as she wishes it was--and he fights her on this but in the end, they still practice until she is satisfied.  
He tells himself it is worth it if only because he has things he would rather block from _her_ as well.

They practice. Hours go by, she realizes she has to remind herself to stop, to go and eat, or find water. She is hardy enough from her years of only eating and drinking when she can, but she does draw the line at losing sleep. It comes to them realizing how much time has lapsed, and Rey gasps in their bond, her green-brown eyes widening in surprise at how long she's stayed, listening to him recant history lessons or stories from his youth about the Old Republic and the age of Jedi and Sith. He is reluctant to see her go again. She is a strange creature, his Rey. One day he will know her better.  
  
They have to set limits, when they can meet, how long they can visit. Unlike her, no one questions his appearance or lack thereof. Snoke is the only creature with enough gall to ask him about his recent absences, and that is what Kylo Ren dreads. She begins to set aside time for her friends, for the Resistance, otherwise someone will get far too concerned or far too nosy, and she is not prepared for the questions or the answers she will have to give.  
She spends countless hours with Kylo Ren in a metaphysical space somewhere between the two of them.  
She isn't sure how to explain that in a way that doesn't make her sound insane, or like a traitor to their cause.  
She certainly isn't prepared to face Luke about this--nevermind General Organa...  
  
Snoke knows, he must know, he must _sense_ \--but nothing comes of it, the hammer never falls. Kylo Ren feels he is skirting disaster each time Snoke summons him, but he steels himself to it. Snoke can do what he likes; the rebukes, the reprimands, the _lessons_ , hard as they have ever been--there is something else in him now, there is _Rey_ in him now, and with Rey he is strong, with their bond _they_ are strong. Perhaps one day strong enough to do the unthinkable.  
It takes nearly nothing to find one another now, as well. He can pinpoint her in the forests of D'Qar, can seek her out in the hallways of the Resistance base. He knows her signature as well as he knows his own, possibly better.

When she is going to visit Luke at last, it has been almost two months since the start of things.  
He sits in her room when she prepares to leave, watching her pack. She only takes the essentials, he notes, but she intends to stay for a good lapse of time. He doesn't realize he is glowering at her until she speaks up about their intended talk for their visit, but by then he hasn't got it in him to talk about such trivial matters. Thinking about their separation is an unpleasant thing, but thinking about her going to Luke to train, where she will be susceptible to his probing, where she will be so close to the Light and the Jedi teachings again...  
She looks at him for a long moment, and not for the first time, he wishes they were physically together.  
"I thought we were supposed to be talking about the Mandalorian Wars again today..?" but she can tell this is not going to progress that way. She sighs, lets him do as he wants. In a way, it's nice to just have the company. She's so accustomed to him by now, sometimes she catches herself forgetting he isn't actually there. Sometimes she catches herself sorely disappointed that he isn't actually there.

She doesn't ever voice this disappointment, and he seems at least good enough to not say anything himself. She appreciates this--she's not sure how ready she is to address things of this nature. He teaches her about old history and shows her techniques Luke has not ever mentioned, he is her teacher, her cellmate in this bond they have, her...  
She hesitates before thinking of him as a _friend_. Every time. But she thinks of him often. She doesn't ever mention it, but she knows by now that he knows anyhow.

He never speaks to her about his own disappointment, either. She was overwhelmed the last time he made mention, and he does not want her to shut him out again. He feels more at ease with her now, less concerned about provoking her rage or her upset, but Force...he _wants_ her. Wants to touch her, to feel her, to be near her and feel the rush of energy and light and power, the near-suffocating waves of it threatening to drown both of them. Just a taste was never enough, would never be enough. He knew what he did the moment he put his arm round her waist that day in the storm; now all he has are dreams, and the few, rare occasions when they brush hands during their visits. Not real, not real enough, not _enough_ , never enough...

 

Luke travels a while to Dagobah.

Rey meets him there. It has been _nearly_ two standard months when she leaves. Seven weeks and four days, to be exact, and with each passing day he feels their bond grow stronger, even if she is not with him.

Four days, she's been gone. He would worry, but he knows that if something cataclysmic were to happen, he would feel it. He _knows_.  
He dreams about her visiting him, and it isn't enough. He tells himself to be patient, she will come back. He does rounds about the ship, even joins the Knights of Ren on a flight to the Outer Rim. Still, he thinks of her. He is glad she is blocked out during the nights--he has a feeling she would be less-than-thrilled with those hours--but sleep is enough escape after.

She is amazed at the greenery but the odd marshy terrain is not her favorite, she determines. Luke laughs, tells her he remembers first coming here himself, warns her about ships sinking and to be mindful of where she lands the Falcon at any time. Chewie flies with her this time, however, and drops her off--two weeks, he tells her, and he'll fly back for her. He is going home a while, he says, and Rey just nods solemnly, letting him give her a furry embrace before departing again.  
Dagobah is bizarrely, _wildly_ , energetic--the air seems charged, she feels the Force heavily here, and while it is amazing, she finds that she has to make a very conscious effort to keep Kylo Ren out of her head when she is not careful. She feels terribly _open_ here on this misty, murky planet. Luke tells her it is where he trained with old Master Yoda, where he learned a great deal about the Force, and about himself.  
"Be mindful of all you see and feel, here," he tells her, "Soon, you will face a challenge that I myself faced many years ago. You must be ready." Cryptic. Rey is used to it by now, but this seems more unsettling than most things he has said to her recently.

Late in the night, Rey reaches for Kylo Ren.

When he feels her gentle touch, it is late hours. He nearly starts at the sudden brush of energy, focuses on hurrying to his rooms when he feels her reaching for him. She feels uncertain; the Force is so strong on this planet, there is so much energy here, it swirls around her like the flowing currents of a river. In the dark, she sits up in her small room in the old hovel there, and stretches some, opening their link up again.  
_...Are you awake?_ She asks, and he feels her open up to him again. It's like fresh water in the heat, and he nods in the real world, strides through the halls lengthening in his haste.  
It's a silly question, if he were asleep she'd know, but she feels on edge, and she isn't sure who else will understand. Had Luke brought...brought _Ben_ here, years ago? Had another young padawan faced this same challenge like she was supposed to, had he been nervous like she was?  
 _I am. Has something happened? It's late wherever you are, I'm sure..._ He responds, and Rey lets out a quiet breath of relief she hadn't realized she was holding in. She smiles to herself at his quip about it being late; honestly it only _feels_ late to her, she's been training all day and anxious about this upcoming 'test' besides--not to mention she's been bedding down early most of her life as it is.  
He cannot hide his concern, but his relief and pure delight at her finally contacting him again manage to beat it back some. He feels her relax a bit, sigh, settle. She is glad he is responding--he wishes he were already in his rooms; he could at least properly pay her attention there.

She can feel how pleased he is that she's contacted him and it's strangely satisfying; she opens their link and decides to go to him this time, finding herself in one of the hallways of the Star Destroyer he's on. She blinks in surprise, looking around and immediately falling into step with the tall figure in black next to her. He's notably in his mask--she hasn't seen that in a while. Walking like this is somewhat new, too. Usually they're stationary when one of them visits, even if they're moving about they're still in one place.

Before he knows it, she's _there_ , trotting along beside him to keep up with his long strides, and under his mask his brow shoots up, though she can't see. She keeps up with him; he's certain even if she wasn't trying to match his step she'd stay alongside him thanks to their bond, but watching her actively try to walk with him is amusing. Rey glances around as they walk with interest.  
"You were the one saying it was late--you're still up walking around," she notes, keeping up on foot even though she's sure the Force would carry her along with him anyway. "I've never gotten to really see one of these in working condition before..."  
An odd sort of reminder, she knows their makeup and build, knows their wiring enough to dismantle one in her sleep, but she's never been inside a Destroyer that's actually up and flying before.  
He glances down at her more than once on their trip through the halls, though he keeps his voice between them.  
_Yes, I am still awake. I do have things to see to on this ship._ Almost a lie. He does have things to attend to, true enough, but there were no such duties that had him out and about this night. He turns to look at her somewhat quizzically when she notes the hallways, curious about her reaction. What does she mean? She was on Starkiller--but then...he supposes Starkiller wasn't a Star Destroyer proper like the Finalizer, there were bound to be differences. 'Working condition' was an odd note, though after a moment he realizes that she's spent years inside the abandoned and gutted bodies of ships like this one, _scavenging_.

She pauses in looking around to finally address his question.  
"No, nothing's happened." She pauses again, however, before amending, "But something is _going_ to happen." She feels the apprehension in herself again. She hasn't felt so uncertain in a while, not since first facing Luke. Will she be able to do this? Will she meet his expectations? What if she fails? What if she disappoints him?  
All her life she's been certain of things, and now everything feels so _un_ certain, and what can she do about it? Nothing but wait.  
"When you were still training...when you studied with Luke, what sort of tests did you have to take? What did he have you do?" She quiets her voice even though no one else can hear her, speaking directly to him.

She starts in on her reasons for being here before he gets to his door. She is apprehensive about something, and immediately when he hears it in her voice, he is ready to take up saber and fist against whatever is troubling her. What's happened, what's worried her? _What has his uncle done?_ His breath catches some at her question, quiet and curious and careful she is and he wants badly to shuttle himself to whatever planet his fool of an uncle has had her come to and carry her away--but if there is anything he knows of Rey by now, it is that she would not take kindly to such an action, and that his Rey, his scavenger girl, is worth her mettle in anything she puts her mind to.  
Taking a breath, he brings himself--themselves--into his room, bothering only with dim lamplight triggered by motion in the room.

"What kind of 'test' is that fool Skywalker giving you?" The apparatus in the mask makes his words vibrate their low, metallic, rumble until he unlatches it and removes the thing, shaking his hair out slightly. It's longer now, long enough to be a slight hassle with the helmet. He rakes mildly aggravated fingers through the unruly locks, exhaling loudly through his nose and setting his helmet aside.  
"And what kind of test is this that's got _you_ so on edge?" There is an edge of teasing in his voice when he glances at her, removing the heavy bolt of fabric draping over his shoulders. "What could possibly shake the _Scavenger_ like this?" He knows she isn't fond of him calling her that, but he wants her to talk, and sometimes provoking her some manages to get more out of her than simply expecting her to say what she is thinking.

She's amazed by their surroundings--seeing a Destroyer like this is awe-striking. Briefly she considers asking if they can keep walking, she wants to see more--the control panels! The turrets! The hangars--oh the _hangars_ , filled with actual, flyable TIE-fighters...She sighs inwardly at this, but when they reach his room she is glad, all the same.

Rey feels his anger start to swell when she asks about Luke. She can hear it, even if he doesn't intend for her to. _What has my uncle done?_ She takes a deep breath, reaching out to try and smother the sparks there.  
She feels it, then, the desire to come and take her away--but she marvels at how quickly he pushes the idea away.

"He isn't--hasn't--he hasn't done anything. Not like that. I'm just..." she lets out an exasperated breath and throws her hands up some, frowning and pacing now. She feels like him, pacing in her room on the base when he is irritated with something.  
He calls her Scavenger and she shoots him a venomous look, but he just looks amused, and she catches the almost _playful_ tone in his voice and she takes a deep breath, exhaling loudly.  
"It's--I feel apprehensive. I don't know what he expects here, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, or seeing, and I'm..." she makes a frustrated gesture, letting out a string of curses and putting her face in her hands. This is _frustrating_.   
He watches her start to pace in his room and he wonders briefly if this is what he seems like to her when he visits. She furrows her brow and he feels her trying to settle his anger, and he gets up to meet her in her pacing, standing in front of her when she exhales like that. At least it isn't anything like he's afraid of, though he's not entirely sure just _what_ he's afraid of in the first place.

He wants to reach out and touch her, but refrains. She puts her face in her hands and he feels the frustration and anxiety roll off of her and he _understands_ , he knows this, he knows what this feels like, he just wishes he could articulate it to her better. She starts to curse and he has to stop himself from laughing--it's not funny, really it's not, she's just...  
"What did he tell you? What is it he's asked you to do?" He tries to be firm but gentle, encouraging her to speak to him. "Where _are_ you?" He realizes she's still not said anything, and he supposes it's just as well. Snoke finding out her location could be catastrophic, and he will do what he can to avoid that happening.

She straightens again, looking at him, aggravation clear on her face.  
"He said it was a cave, I go into a cave, and I bring with me whatever I think necessary, and just...that's the test. I'm supposed to see into myself, or something." She growls in frustration, "I wish he would just tell me what I'm supposed to do!" She feels like he is sending her into this blind for something bigger than he's making it sound, and she isn't know how ready she is for that. What if she fails? Then what? Does her training end there? What will that mean for her place in the Resistance, for her place with General Organa, and Finn, and Poe, and all the others? Rey doesn't like this. She doesn't like feeling helpless and confused, and she clenches a fist. "I can fix things, I can learn languages, I can _do_ this--why do I feel like I can't do this?" She sounds angry and deflated, frustrated and uncertain. She can't tell him where she is, she just...it won't feel right, she knows he'll find out, she knows he'll figure it out, but somehow telling him herself just feels...unsafe, especially here, on the Finalizer, in his room.

She's pacing again and moves around him, her steps getting somewhat erratic until he moves to her and stops her, and his hand hovers just over her skin and she wishes he would touch her, she wishes he would do something, would move--she can feel it in herself, she wants it, she wants his hand on her skin, she wants to be closer, wants...wants _him_ , and she doesn't know how to ask, doesn't know how to feel about this--.  
"Wait--" A cave, a _cave_ , he knows, he knows where she is, he knows what this is. His brow knits and he holds up a hand to stop her, trying to think this over. What can he tell her? What is there to tell her, there is no real warning for this, and he supposes it isn't so much a 'test' as it is a trial, but...

Her defeated tone stops him and he looks up at her again. She looks so unsettled, so upset, and his fists clench at his sides. He strides over to her and reaches his hand to hover just above her cheek, close enough he'd be able to feel how warm her skin is if she'd been standing there physically, if he hadn't been in his gloves.  
"Rey."  
He gazes down at her, trying to effect some kind of calm, though it's not easy for him. She's unsettled and it makes him feel on edge, makes him feel the same familiar churn of emotions. She has to stop, she has to calm herself, otherwise if her emotions get the best of her then Skywalker may take notice. Her breath catches and she wants so much and wants to say so much and do so much, and she nearly leans into his touch on her own, she feels the pull to him like he is magnetic, drawing her in--

"You're--" He cuts himself off. Never safe, they can never be safe, never _too_ safe. _You're on Dagobah. He wants you to go into one of the Caves--it's not a test, Rey, it's..._ He struggles to think of how to explain. _It's...you'll enter, and you'll...you'll **see** things. You'll have visions, and you..._ Even Kylo Ren understands that you cannot fully prepare for this, you cannot fully understand what will happen to you in this place. Dagobah is the living Force amplified by every bit of life that exists on the planet, he remembers being there as a child, remembers fearing the place, what it made him see, what it made him feel...

He is nervous, he is thinking quickly and she is not sure what to do, she is still angry and anxious but she feels _want_ , so much that it makes her fists curl at her sides in frustration, not understanding what to do about it, but...  
He knows--he knows where she is, and he knows the cave, and her brow knits at his brief explanation, she knows why he keeps his voice between the two of them but she still doesn't understand what he means, and--

She feels it, rushing through her and through the link between them, a wave of energy, and she isn't sure what it is but suddenly there is something, there is a _memory_ , so many, so many images and sounds and feelings and Rey jerks back in shock, feeling her throat tighten and tears threaten her eyes--the feelings are so overwhelming and so strong and she can barely breathe but she coughs out a word, a single word,  
" _Ben_ \--"  
Little Ben, young Jedi boy, _poor thing_ , so alone someone help someone please someone make it stop help _help him!_ and Rey snaps back to the present, sees Kylo Ren looking up at her before he stumbles back and reaches for her, and Rey can hear his voice in her head like a plea and it makes her feel cold and so afraid and so overwhelmingly _sad_ but no--no, no no, he needs her, he needs her, she can help him she can do something--

_The voice, the voices, they were so clear on Dagobah, the cold was so sharp and the darkness was so deep, he was so afraid on Dagobah, Uncle Luke's light was so blinding and he stumbled backwards, and **It** was waiting when he did, he felt the fingers of it around his throat and on his arms, pulling him down--_

In the present, Kylo Ren stumbles back from her and gasps for breath, a shudder tearing through him at this hideous, visceral memory. No-- _No, not again, not now_ \--  
_Rey--Rey, Rey--Rey,_ he tries desperately to focus on her but he can feel it coming from her, that old energy, the Force from that misty planet, the raw energy of it amplifying things, no wonder Rey is so angry now and so confused, he reaches for her, eyes wide. _Rey, Rey--_ It is all he can manage, feeling the freezing pull of the dark, like drowning in icy water. Even here, even near Snoke--perhaps _because_ he is near Snoke; Rey is _there_ , and their bond is open and feeding it all through to him here. He wants her, he needs her he needs her he needs her it pounds in his head and he reaches for her like the surface of the water, Rey, Rey, _Rey_ \--he should close her off for now, push her out, but Rey, oh his Rey, the only thing keeping him together, she is. Rey's face is ashen and stunned, and he knows that she knows, that she's _seen_. She's seen it, felt it, heard it; the failures and the fear and the powerlessness in him--in _Ben Solo_ \--and she recoils from him. It physically pains him, her wrenching away like she does, and it stirs up anger and loathing and _shame_ in him. He is not the sniveling boychild he was so many years ago any longer, he is not so _weak_ any longer, he knows he is not--

Rey lunges forward and grabs his hand, her body crashing into his and her fingers locking with his to hold him there, to anchor him there with her; and he is so lost in his own roiling emotions that he doesn't realize what's happened until their bodies are colliding together and her fingers are linking with his and she is against him, she is against him, she is pressed close and he cannot focus on anything else--

\--Until the great surge of power that exchanges between them. The feeling is like a jolt of energy, they collide and it knocks the breath from her lungs and she wants him, she _needs_ him, and she doesn't fully understand these things but she knows them all the same. The warmth in her belly, the tension in her muscles, the ache she feels--but the energy is so strong, stronger than she's felt so far and now that they touch it feels overpowering. She's never felt power like this before, like she could push through the bond to him right then and be there, on the Finalizer--like she could pull him to her and he would be there, on Dagobah. It's dizzying and delirious and she can't take her eyes off of his, her breath coming in harsh pants as she struggles with the surge of power in her bones.  
It's there, it's between them, it's when she touches him and when they are together, and there is so much _power_!

Already he was feeling the flow of the Force through her end of the link between them, but this...this is so different, so much _more_ , and it knocks the breath from his lungs but he wants _more_ of it, and Rey--his Rey, oh...  
He feels her fingers curl around his and he squeezes her hand, encircling her waist with his free arm and pressing her close to his chest. She is...she is _warm_ , she feels _real_ again, like he could pull her to him through the Force itself or push his way through to her, and there is a spark of something that starts to smoulder in her; he feels it in her and it makes his breath catch when he starts to breathe again finally, nearly gasping for breath along with her and wanting, wanting, _wanting_...  
_Rey, Rey, **Rey**..._ All he can do is repeat her name over and over between their bond, his tongue cannot form the words just yet.

Rey knows what this hunger is, she knows what this need is. She understands lust, she understands desire--but she's never felt it like this before.  
This is consuming, this is burning her and dizzying all at once, and feeling Kylo Ren's fingers tighten around hers and his arm around her waist, Rey shivers and her free hand reaches to slowly, carefully slide up over his upper-arm.

She wants to touch him. She wants to be touched _by_ him. She wants _him_ \--oh _Maker_ , she wants him; this isn't right, but she needs it, and when he crushes her against his chest she shudders in the best way and lets out a shaking breath, hearing her name from him again and again. He wants her, too, she knows, and for a moment she understands that even in the bond they can feel one another--would this...could they possibly manage such a thing here--and if they could, what sort of repercussions would there possibly be?  
There are so many other things she should be contemplating now, so many things that are screaming at her to _stop thinking of these heated things_. How could she think of need, and lust, and desire--towards _Kylo Ren_ , of all people in the pfassking galaxy? How could she ever explain this?  
Even still, it _was_. No matter the reason or the explanation, she wanted Kylo Ren, and right now she wanted to _fuck_ Kylo Ren.  
This kind of desire wasn't romantic, wasn't sweet or loving or gentle, Rey wanted crushing arms and biting teeth and bloody kisses, bruising fingers and burning mouths--it made her shiver but she had no way to possibly articulate this, Maker forbid _ask_ for it...

Rey is hungry as well, he feels the want in her and the Force seems to just amplify it in both of them, burning around them like they're standing in an inferno.  
"Rey..." It is heady and low, a rumble in the quiet between them, calling to the need in her that echoes his own. His Rey, a beacon in the Force, raw and pure power, perfect girl; she reaches into him and he nearly groans with the bliss of it. She delves into him and touches places that have seen nothing but darkness and shadow for years now, and her energy is like _magic_ flowing into his and mixing together with it. More of a rush, more delicious and addictive than any drug could be, _Rey_...

Oh...she can feel him there, not Kylo Ren, someone else, deep inside, afraid and alone and so, so sad, and she wants to reach to him and show him that someone can see him, someone knows he is there, someone will be gentle to him...  
She's reached into him, yes--using the Force like her own hands she felt about in his consciousness, feeling the strange lingering loneliness, fear, sadness--it was there, hiding amidst his lust and the eruption of rage and shame she'd felt in him suddenly. She feels around as if running her hands over him, and she feels an almost-groan from Kylo Ren, feels his arm tighten around her. Ohh..  
The source is hidden deep in his consciousness, pushed down and quashed, but still there.   
_Ben Solo_. Still alive, still within Kylo Ren.  
_Ben..._ She whispers it with all of the gentleness in her, like whispering to something small and vulnerable and fragile, a baby, a lover. _Ben..._

But then she touches _that_ space, and he freezes, feels everything go cold. No--she can't, she can't bring that to light, not now, not _here_ \--he rips away from her as quickly as possible, stunned and gasping for breath. Rey reaches to offer comfort, to acknowledge this discovery, but she finds herself pushed away just as soon as she does so. He shoves away from her, shaking his head and shivering with the effort of breaking away from her and thinking of what to do.  
" _No_!" His voice is ragged and hoarse, and he stares at her with wide eyes. "No--you can't--"  
Someone will know, someone will _sense_ , will discover, and then he will not be safe and Rey will not be safe, never again, and she cannot see this part of him, she cannot bring that back to the surface!   
"What--I--" Kylo Ren is enraged and stunned, pushing her back from him physically. It _hurts_ ; both physically and not, in ways she can't quite explain. "Kylo--please--what--" But he backs away from her and she sees fear in his eyes, like a cornered animal, like a startled child, wary of her now and trying to defend himself.  
"No--no, no--you have to leave, don't ever--don't _ever_ do that--" Her eyes are wide and she's panting for breath, startled by thi _s._ She knows what he's thinking of doing and tries to step towards him again, steeling herself for him to try and push her out, her heart pounding in her chest. No no no--no not like this--  
"Kylo-- _Ben_ \--please don't--please--!"

And then before he can stop himself of think better of the decision he is about to make, he expels her from his consciousness.

And just as suddenly as she had appeared with him in the hallway, she is suddenly alone in the hovel on Dagobah again.

There is a barrier in place around him.  
Kylo Ren has shut Rey out this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of my love, as always, to everyone still reading along!  
> you guys are amazing, thank you for all of the kudos and the comments. hopefully you'll stick with us to the end!  
> as ever, find me on tumblr as raindropwaltz as well!
> 
> who knows, maybe i'll actually get a schedule going with these chapters, too...


	7. Rift | Kylo Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isolation.  
> Fear. Silent ache. A journey.

Kylo Ren does not sleep that night.  
Or the following night.  
Or the night after that.  
Kept awake by sheer rage and some pills from medbay, he is exhausted but he _cannot_ sleep, not now, not while he could still see _Her_ , still think of _Her_ \--his barrier is up but he feels weak right now, unable to remove her from him completely, not after _that_...

Snoke summons him after four days.

He is in mask and robes when he goes, though he knows this will do nothing to hide things from the omnipresent creature. The holo flickers to life upon his arrival and Kylo Ren steels himself for this. He has been far too erratic recently, it cannot have escaped notice.  
He is right.

"Something has been...distracting you...as of late, Kylo Ren." The voice is gravelly, low. Too calm. A serpent lying in wait. Kylo Ren goes to a knee, bows his head, exposes his back to the predator. It is all he can do in the face of it.  
"There has been much shifting in the Force recently, Supreme Leader." A half-truth. The disfigured face considers it, but something dangerous glitters in beady, black eyes.  
"Yes...ever since your failure with the scavenger girl." Kylo Ren forces himself not to flinch at the way the shriveled beast says 'scavenger girl'. He will not have her, he will not have Rey, _he will not_. "I trust you do not need any reminder of the result of **yet another** failure..."  
The Master of the Knights of Ren goes cold, skin tingling, burning, at the memory, brief though it is.  
"No, Supreme Leader." His voice is hoarse even through the modulator. His mouth feels dry and thick, he wants to leave this place immediately, but cannot. He knows nothing is that easy, nothing will be that easy. Snoke's skeletal fingers gesture vaguely.  
"The Resistance grows more bold with their recent victory. We will ensure that it is their **last**. The girl is in the hands of Skywalker now, and so long as she is within their wretched influence, she will be a weapon against us." His tiny black eyes narrow, and he leans forward in his chair slightly, looming over the kneeling apprentice threateningly. "You know what must be done. Bring. The girl. _To me._ "

The hologram flickers and slowly fades away as the looming figure begins to shift backwards into his seat again, disappearing before he can settle back down, and Kylo Ren is alone again.  
The unspoken threat in the command makes his skin cold.

He _must_ keep Rey out now--if Snoke discovers, if he finds even so much as a minuscule opportunity to touch her...  
Kylo Ren's hands curl into fists and he feels helpless. What could he do if such a thing were to happen? He knows he is not strong enough to face Snoke alone.  
Desperate and alone, behind his mask his eyes close for a moment and he fortifies his barrier against Her. What more can he do? He wants to beat at the self-made structure, crumble the walls he's formed around himself to rubble and open himself to her again, to feel her again, to be in her presence again.  
_Rey, Rey, Rey..._ The word echoes in his own head and he wants relief, anguished and craving her.

The dark finds him that night, finally pulls him into slumber. It is fitful, hits him as if he's fallen into a deep well and his body has smashed into the bottom at last. He dreams of the past, nightmares filled with bruises and flames, cold stone floors, his bones cracking and racked with torturous pain, the taste of a mouth filled with blood and bile and anger and fear, shadows like hands and teeth, his mother's crying, his father's face, the red light shining in his wide eyes, in eyes of green and brown and gold, blood in her mouth, blood on her face, blazing light in her hands and murder in her eyes, and they turn to black eyes, unfeeling and so cold, so cold, they see right through him and they see _her_ , and she will never be safe again, all his fault, she will break and bleed and he will know it is _his fault_.

He wakes three days later. Hux is, unsurprisingly, less than thrilled with his sudden presence after a period without. He will be leaving shortly, he informs, on orders from the Supreme Leader. Hux seems quietly pleased at the notion of Ren being gone, but then, the Supreme Leader's orders do take precedence, of course.

Kylo Ren tries to form a plan of action.  
Snoke will not tolerate another failure. If he cannot do this then another will be sent in his place, and he will be more powerless than he is now to stop it. He cannot go to the Resistance, he cannot go to Skywalker. He needs something, a plan, an idea, something to draw this out until he has a solid answer to his problem. His mind tumbles over his options; where to go, what excuse there could be for each and every place, why he would seek her there, why he would bother, and then--Jakku.  
Out in the Western Reaches, far from where they lingered in the galaxy now. Jakku, where he would find Niima Outpost. A creature called Unkar Plutt. A graveyard of Imperial ships. An AT-AT, hollowed out and given a hammock, made by hands far too small to see such toil and labor each and every day--far too young, far too young to see such things, to do such things--a tiny dry plant, kept in spite of its state. Jakku.  
He would find Rey there, even if she could not be with him.

 

 

The arid planet is hotter and drier than he remembers. Tuanul was done in the night; he realizes the air was cooler then, and the revelation is shocking. How can creatures _survive_ here?  
Clad in lighter clothing than his usual fare and without his mask (face shrouded by his hood all the same) Kylo Ren lands further from the Outpost than other visitors, makes his way through the sand on foot. Scavengers pass him on his way; young and old, of any and all races, laden with all manner of goods. A tottering creature totes strange cages of small animals, another lumbers along with a solid, sturdy body and only the use of two tiny mechanical arms on a backmount to drag along his sled of goods. They are all hot and worn and filthy; he watches them with a mixture of disgust and intrigue, never staring at any one of them too long.  
Tables of them sit under tentroofs, all of them working at whatever trinkets they've found. He wanders among them, trying to feel about for someone, anyone, who may be able to give him information on her, the girl who managed to escape this place.

Finally...A woman, aged and scrubbing at a plundered hunk of metal. A flicker of something. He investigates.  
Rey. She's seen Rey, she knows Rey. He towers over her small frame where she is seated and working at the metal.  
"A girl--there was a girl that lived here. A scavenger. Human, nearly twenty standard years." The woman doesn't stop in her work and he finds he is not fond of this unbothered attitude.  
"You mean Rey. Nobody come here lookin' for anyone unless they're gone already. Rey's gone. Been gone months. Girl's not comin' back." He rumbles inwardly at how right she is. Rey will never have to suffer on this filthy rock again.  
"Where did she live?" A pause now, and the old woman turns to look up at him scrutinizingly.  
"Cost you, little boy. Don't got the time to be singing you songs about girls without no pay." He feels rage roiling up in him at this but tries to remain calm.  
"I'll pay you as many credits as you'd like--"  
"Got no use for all that. Credits, hah. Go find a young one for your credits." He's ready to kill this wrinkled old creature but he needs information and he's losing his temper rapidly.  
"Then what _do_ you want?" There's quiet for a moment.  
"Only thing anyone here wants. Food. Water. You come back when you have real 'money' boy." she waves him off then. He gets the distinct sense that she doesn't care all that much for living or dying and his rage manages to simmer just slightly. He turns from her finally and scowls behind the shroud of his mantle, fuming. Food and water. Maker, what was happening on this disgusting rock?

Food and water, he discovers, are controlled by the putrid creature Unkar Plutt.  
He sees the wretched thing and immediately understands Rey's disgust. Nevertheless, he needs information. It can't be helped.  
"Unkar Plutt," he stands at the trader's counter now, "I require information. In return," he withdraws a thin card from a hidden pocket on his person. "You'll be paid accordingly." He's loathe to deal with this sort of scum but he realizes that may mostly be due to his connection to Rey. He also notes the creature is missing an arm--he recalls him being whole in Rey's scattered memories. Curious.  
Plutt eyes the card and then snatches it from his hand to look it over, guttural voice dubious, skeptical.  
"Just what is it you're here to learn, with credits like these, hmm?"  
"I want information about a scavenger. A human female. Twenty standard years. She was left here presumably in your care." The Crolute's expression immediately changes and his voice is an angry hiss.  
"You're after **that** little bitch--" Kylo Ren's hand tightens on his lightsaber under the countertop and his jaw tightens, but Plutt continues. "She ran off, about a year ago now. Stole my ship, took a droid that was ransomed by the First Order." Plutt's yellowed, calculating eyes seem to glimmer with some kind of dark curiosity. "What is it you're after with **her**?"  
"What I'm after is none of your concern." His tone is clipped and he is far too angry at this point to refrain from just taking the information he wants.

Fingers curl on the counter with the slight effort of digging through Plutt's memories. Rey. He searches, and finds so _much_ \--but his stomach turns at most of it. Plutt's intentions towards her are sickening, and Kylo has to restrain himself from not striking the trader down where he stands. He does get what he's after, though.  
_Images of a speeder, red, rusted, old but useable, the girl's made it herself, how much does she think it's worth, every day, every day, give her just enough to make sure she comes back, Rey--angry child, beautiful child, sharp little thing, too clever, too mouthy, thinks she's better, could think of better uses for that mou--_ There's a crunching sound and the metal grating separating Plutt from him contracts into itself, tangling up out of the way. He grits his teeth but continues, despite the deep confusion and mild pain on Plutt's face.  
_\--tter than the other scavengers, that staff, that staff, makes everything up in that hovel of hers, should **never** have let her have her own home, damned walker--_ He presses further on this, pushing more on that point. _Sand, golden sand everywhere under blue sky, fallen Star Destroyers, past the graveyard, under Carbon Ridge, Kelvin Ravine is too far, Goazon, right there, security, can't get in, angry at her, angry at the security, my **property** \--_ But he has enough now.

A flick of his wrist and Plutt is groaning in pain and pulled forward uncomfortably crunched over the counter, his metal plates bending with his weight against them and the hard surface. Kylo Ren leans dangerously close, eyes dark with his rage.  
"You will _never_ see her again. These scavengers will pick off everything you have left and leave you to rot." There is a shout, a scream, the sound of a lightsaber activating. The rushing of bodies and clothing, the confused shouts the angry shouts the screams and the yelling and the hissing of burning metal--when all is done, Kylo Ren walks away from the wreckage, shuts off his lightsaber, settles his mantle over his mouth and shoulders again. Behind him, Plutt's 'Concession Stand' is a mess of twisted and molten metal and burnt cloth, brazen scavengers rushing the scene for what was held behind the secured and now destroyed walls. Plutt himself is down another arm, wailing and thrashing on the sandy ground, and two of his thugs are cut down nearby. There is something furious and dark in Kylo Ren's eyes, but he says nothing, makes no sound as he heads for the bazaar, credits card tucked back into a hidden pocket in his robes.

The odd market that's been set up as part of Niima Outpost is...mostly what he was expecting, but also not.  
There are imports here, black market deals on weaponry, animals. Drugs. Creatures--and he knows these are all unsavory. The sorts of purchases made here will never be spoken of otherwise and will never sit in any ledger. Niima is lawless in the best way for anyone looking for anything under surveillance, anything illicit, anything termed dangerous, contraband, _illegal_ , on any planet in any system.

Kylo Ren passes stalls with bored merchants, stalls with creatures arguing in varying tongues, pointing and gesturing animatedly. These creatures are not all from this planet. These creatures are not all from this system. They are not scavengers, they are not all poor. There are wealthy buyers here, he sees it in their robes, hears it in their tones of voice. He knows wealth. He knows class. Some hide it better than others. He passes pleasure houses, dim bars. He wonders if Rey ever came to this sordid place. Wandering buyers eye him warily, some of them wondering if he is familiar. He tucks his mantle more securely around the lower half of his face and continues on, not meeting any eyes. A group of Twi'lek girls in what barely passes for clothing eye him hungrily and giggle when his glance flicks over them even for a second, and he feels some amount of frustration in his gut. What does he want here? He should just find the AT-AT now...

"...heard that it was full of plunder. Scrappy little human had a hoard in that gutted walker!"

He stops mid-step, much to the displeasure of two Duros that have been walking behind him and now are forced to navigate around the tall human, but Kylo Ren is focused on the conversation he's just wandered into.  
"It's all gone now, Plutt had his thugs tear out some of the security sys she set up. Smart thing, be a shame if she comes back though." There's laughter now, and Kylo Ren feels his jaw tighten. Looted? Torn out security? His brow furrows and he tries to move closer.  
"Speeder got taken apart. Heard the parts got a hefty sum from old Blobfish." More laughter, and Kylo's eyes narrow some. "Wonder what that commotion was. Someone was raving about Jedi here--can you imagine..."  
No, he doesn't suppose he can. His expression neutralizes some and he retains his distance from the seated speakers; older creatures, one looks Bothan and the other human. Not scavengers, perhaps, but they know of Rey. He briefly thinks perhaps there is more to be learned, but he wants to see this fallen, gutted walker for himself now.

His ship is where he left it. He hadn't assumed otherwise, but there are in fact a group of onlookers that seem to be inspecting it up until he comes striding up and the hatch lowers for him. They disperse, casting mistrusting and curious looks back at him, but keep their distance as he enters the Upsilon Class flier and settles into the pilot's seat. This dirt heap--he cannot stop himself from tearing back his mantle from over his head, and finds himself furious with all of it. The sand, the sun, the wind, the _people_ \--the _people_ most of all. They are infuriating, coarse, and the way they think of Rey and her belongings...  
He slams a fist onto his control panel, hunching over it a moment and running a hand up into his hair angrily. How had she survived here? How had she done it, all alone? _How long had she been here?_

The flight to her walker is silent. He is brimming with fury through all of it, thinking of this filthy planet and how it has treated his Rey, his beacon in the Force, the girl who escaped this hellhole. When he spots the walker on his scanner, he speeds towards it, setting down just a few yards away. The sand isn't ideal for a landing pad but he does not intend to stay long.  
The outside is clearly weather-worn and old--but there is new damage. Part of the hull on the gullet is crushed in, a hole made in the thick metal. There are deep score-marks all around the metal and clearly in more than one place things have been dug or torn out.  
He looks it all over, the metal and the sand, and finally, slowly, wanders inside.

The inside has clearly been plundered. Sand has been tracked in, and there is broken pottery in one corner. Fixtures have been torn out of the walls, and light shines in through the hole in the hull. There is a broken lamp on the floor on one side of the small chamber, and the casings of torn open food-storage units on the floor, some half-buried in sand.  
Kylo Ren takes all of this in in silence. He feels huge in the small space, and imagining a human, any human, let alone _Rey_ living here...He reaches to run a light, gloved hand over a small shelf near the entryway. Memories--so many memories--the feeling is a shock to his system and he steps back, withdrawing his hand and bringing it to his mouth, eyes wide. Rey was here for...for so _long_ \--how...he hadn't ever thought...  
His steps back send him nearly tripping over a small sort of utensil. He looks down at it, a strange almost stylus, and when he looks back up his eyes find what it was used for.

The wall.

It takes a moment for the gravity of it to sink in, the reality of what he is seeing. Marks. So, so many of them--tallies along the wall, little lines in the metal that cover nearly the entire surface. His breath grows shallow, taking it all in, and his hand slowly slides down away from his mouth. Rey...all of the marks...all of the _days_....  
It feels hard to breathe all of the sudden. He cannot fathom someone being so alone for so long, forced to survive in a place like this for so long. Never anyone like Rey. Rey...how could she have come from such terrible desolation, how...  
A long, silent breath. This kind of loneliness, this kind of isolation, this kind of shadow, was reserved for creatures like him. A person went into this sort of hollow darkness and emerged hard and cold and angry and bitter--how then is Rey so _different_? Her strength comes from the same well his own, but the two forces are so terribly different in nature that it is staggering.  
Granted, he allows, feeling himself grow cold again, granted, Rey has not been perpetrator to the same amount of wrong that he has. She will never be subjected to that, to the things he has seen and done. She has been through enough, and he still understands that he does not know the full extent of it all.

Before he realizes it fully, the walls he's set up in the bond crumble. He needs her, now, realizes he wants nothing more than to feel her presence again.  
He is furious and disconsolate, angry with whatever circumstance left Rey to rot on this planet, mournful for the pain and loneliness she must have endured.  
But Kylo Ren knows pain, and isolation, and loneliness.

_Never again, Rey... **never again.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an announcement this time!  
> chapter updates will officially be on wednesdays for now; i'm hoping to maybe start getting side-material for this together for saturdays, too. maybe some one-shots of kylo-rey lesson time, or some fun with finn and poe? stay tuned.
> 
> special thanks to my beta reader for this chapter! maki you're the best. c:
> 
> as always, thank you all so much for reading, and sticking with this story! check back next week for rey's half of this chapter-duo!


	8. Rift | Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isolation.  
> Fear. Silent ache. A journey.

Rey is so stunned and hollowed out that she doesn't sleep that night.  
The next day, she is so exhausted Luke cancels their training to let her rest. He seems suspicious, but says nothing even if he knows the truth.  
Rey lies awake in the hut in the swamp, feeling the Force swirl and trickle around her, through her, creating little eddies around her that she can feel churning and swirling with her inactivity.  
Why does she feel so hollow? She blocked _him_ the last time this occurred. She knows the feeling of being cut off, of their 'bond' being blocked, walled off.  
So then why does this feel so different?  
  
She lies in the dark all night and thinks.  
The Force swells in her, struggling to fill the strange void she feels in her belly, lulling Rey into the sleep she desperately needs.  
She dreams of Ben Solo. Not Kylo Ren, _Ben_ \--she sees the boy she felt inside the darkness, reaches out to him again.  
_I know you,_ she breathes in the dream, _I know you._ She reaches her hand to him, sees him keep to the shadows. _Ben...Please, please let me help you…_  
There is only silence, and the quiet, haunted look in Ben Solo's eyes before Rey wakes again. Her mouth is dry, and her eyes are damp.  
  
Luke tells her she slept for a full day. She isn't sure how to respond; she hadn't thought it had been even an hour. He's concerned--she doesn't blame him, she supposes. If it were anyone else acting like her then she would be concerned for them as well. He summons her to sit with him a while, and Rey thinks of how she will respond when he asks her for the truth.  
  
She waits. He meditates sitting across from her and Rey tries to focus and center herself, but just feels tired, and empty. She closes her eyes and there is no one waiting, no sardonic chuckling or sarcastic remark. The energy is gone, the presence is gone. There is only a barrier, and quiet. The Force itself seems to hover and hesitate on her side of the barrier between them, as if waiting for it to open again. She wonders how long it will have to wait.  
Luke speaks up and breaks the silence after a while of this. Rey just listens, resigned and still.  
"You haven't been yourself, Rey." He sounds worried, but knows he is voicing the obvious. "I have felt a shift, since the storm on D'Qar." Rey feels a shiver run through her at the mention of it. Luke sighs quietly, watching her pensively. "What has changed, Rey?" She isn't sure what to say.  
"I..." She takes a breath, and centers, looking to the Force for answers. What can she say? What will help? There is quiet, and then a sound, an answer, images and memories, and she knows what to say. "...I've been thinking about him recently. About Kylo Ren," her voice lowers some, sad and gentle, "about Ben Solo." Luke's face is lined and all at once, he seems so much older.  
"My nephew. Leia told me he came to you that day. I wish you had told me, Rey." Rey's breath hitches. What has Leia told him? "You should not have had to face him alone."  
This makes her pause, her brow knitting slightly.  
"Why? If you had come to help me, then..." she takes a breath, weighing things. "What would you do, if you were face to face with him again?" Luke is silent for a long, long time. Rey feels her heart clench some, searching the Force for an answer, but this time none come.  
  
"I would ask him for forgiveness."  
  
Rey's mouth feels dry and she isn't sure what to say. Luke's shoulders sag slightly and his head bows.  
"I failed him, all those years ago. I should have sensed it more clearly, I should have taken more time to help him. My own flesh and blood, and I let him be taken into the darkness. I should have listened. By the time I realized what had happened, it was too late." Rey wasn't expecting this, but she wants to know. She wants to understand--she finds herself leaning forward some, concern clear on her face.  
"What _happened_ , Luke?"  
There is a sigh, and then Luke nods some, weary and resigned now himself.  
  
"Ben was just a boy when Leia had him come to train with me. I had found other children--like Ben, some of them even younger--that were Force-sensitive, and I knew it was time to try and rebuild the Jedi way. There was a school, small, but steadily growing, that I had begun in an old temple. Things were peaceful, even after Ben arrived.  
“But I didn't see everything. No one can know everything, no one can prevent everything. I knew that Ben felt ostracized, but I had no idea it was so deep. Ben began to train alone, study alone. He would ask me for advice, and I never quite seemed to grasp what it was he was so afraid of, what he was so worried about. I told him he was just being tempted, not to worry. My father fell to temptation once, and the galaxy suffered. I told him he would not share that fate, I felt confident.  
  
“Ben became nearly reclusive. He refused to even see his parents when they visited, I found he hadn't been contacting them, even. I could, I can, remember being his age, being so ready to be on my own, to have my own adventures, my own excitement, but Ben was staving off so much more than I realized. When the attack came, I felt blindsided. I hadn't anticipated such a thing in my wildest dreams.  
"The temple was set on fire. I believe they wanted most of us to perish inside, to minimize what they would have to do. There were six others; seven with Ben. The temple burned, and I tried to get the others out, but barely managed to even get myself out. We were headed off by the Knights of Ren--with Ben among them."  
Luke's face is ashen and Rey sees tears in his eyes. His voice is heavy, laden with old guilt and sadness.  
"They were calling themselves that already, all in black with those masks...but I knew their names. Their faces. They were my students, some of them with less promise, near Ben's age. The youngest of them was hardly in his teens. The students who hadn't turned were so young...there were few of them, but I failed them, and I will carry that burden until the end of my days.”  
  
Rey is stunned, brow knit, mouth agape.  
"Your...your students..." She can remember, suddenly, flashes. Flames and acrid smoke. Screams. A temple burning in the distance. Seven figures in black, and gleaming masks. Her eyes fill with tears and she feels her chest tighten. What _happened_ to Ben Solo? How did such a terrible thing come to pass? Luke covers his mouth a moment before running his hand over his greyed beard.  
"Let this be all for today. I need to rest, I think."  
Rey cannot argue with that.  
  
That night, she tries the barrier again. Nothing is changed.  
She sits in front of it as if waiting, hoping it will come down, crack between them. It does not. She waits. Sits quietly. Hopes.  
The next day it rains, and Luke rests. Rey meditates. Sits. Waits. Nothing changes.  
The next day it is still raining. Luke tells her the story of his mother and father, what he knows of it. Rey sits in her room that night, and meditates. Sits. Waits. Nothing changes.  
  
She dreams of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala that night. They are approximations of what they might look like. Anakin is heroic, if brooding. Padme is beautiful, and sad. Rey wonders if Padme knew what her fate would be, one day. Did she know, and stay anyways? Did she know what she would leave behind?  
Ben Solo is not there. Rey thinks of her own family, unknown and gone away, and huddles into a ball under the thin blanket.  
Luke discusses the caves with her on the twelfth day. She will leave in two days, he thinks she is ready. Rey feels anxiety spike in her again, and that night she cannot eat.  
  
Lying in the lumpy bed she'd made her own over the past weeks, she tries to meditate. What can she do? She wants to talk to someone, voice her fears and her doubts, but Luke chastises her for fear, and thinks so highly of her abilities....  
She reaches for Kylo Ren, and he is not there.  
The night passes in silence, and Rey feels herself growing somewhat cold.  
  
They go to the cave the following day. Rey is nerves and concerns, but she is determined. She will see this through, she can do this.  
_I can do this,_ she thinks, setting her jaw and facing the misty mouth of the cave she will venture into, _I can do this._  
Luke holds her pack, her staff. Will she take them? What does she want to do?  
"Take what you think you will need," he tells her, "nothing more." Rey's brow knits. This is part of all of it, this is some test, and she swallows, wondering just what is in this place--but eyeing the mouth of it again she sees the deep, dark maw and takes her staff in hand, twin blades still disengaged. Luke makes no reaction to this, and Rey gives him a lingering look before turning to the cave again, and finally making her way in.  
  
Her first thoughts are that this place is so dark...she wonders how deep it is. How far does the cave extend, are there creatures in the belly of it? The ground is not solid in all places, not flat and steady, and Rey feels on edge. What is supposed to happen?  
  
She delves further into the cave. Shadows seem to move, and she senses movement all around, all around, just out of sight. The edges of her periphery sound off like alarms, but there is nothing. Rey feels a tremor run through her. What is this place? She wishes she weren't alone, wishes she knew what to do.  
  
There is a sound.  
And then another.  
  
Voices, ghosts of voices, not quite there, reaching her from far away and moving around her. Rey goes still, eyes wide in the dim, dim cave. Her nerves are alight and she is on alert, eyes slowly scanning what she can see without moving her head.  
More noise. Sounds, echoing far off, though whether they are further down the cave or behind her, she cannot tell.  
Someone shouts--louder now than the others--and sounds reverberate off the stone walls around her. Shouts. Blaster shots. The hum of blades. Sounds of battle.  
Rey's lightsaber blades come into brilliant, yellow, life. Blaster firing. Someone is yelling, others are running. It can't be real....  
  
The smell of smoke. Rey's eyes widen further, if this is possible, and she jerks her head around to look into the shadows all around her. Nothing--nothing, nothing! Darkness, mist, stone wall. Where is this coming from?  
She takes a few hesitant steps forward, staff at the ready, her body prepared for fight-or-flight. There is a shout suddenly and Rey goes stiff and cold.  
  
_"REY!"_  
  
She knows this voice, looks around wildly.  
"Finn?!" She shouts into the darkness, "No--can't be real, the cave..." She goes from shout to mutter, brow knitting. She can still hear the shout ringing in her ears. That was Finn's voice, she knows it anywhere! But how? Shouting, orders as if to attacking troops. Rey has heard them on the base. Is that what she’s hearing? Is this like her visions, is something wrong?  
  
Her blood goes cold and she swallows. What if this _is_ a vision? What if something is happening, what if they need her?  
She turns to run for the entrance of the cave, but she runs and runs and feels lost, cannot find the way she came. _How?_ This place was only _one passage_ \--  
Out of the darkness, a lightsaber flashes into existence.  
  
Red and crackling, burning, she knows it anywhere. Behind it follows its master, and Rey's breath dies in her throat, eyes following the gleam of red over the chromed lines on the black mask.  
"Ky--" There is an angry growl, and the masked Force-user attacks her through the mist, slashing at her just as she knows him to. How--How is he--she hadn't even sensed him, how was he _here_? He beats at her saber blades, she struggles to block him now, stunned at his appearance.  
But something isn't right.  
  
"Stop--Stop, Kylo _please_ \--stop, something's wrong, _stop_ \--" she sounds high-pitched and frantic, something deeply wrong here. What's the matter with him, he seems frenzied, out of control, and Rey is afraid. Her brow knits and she starts trying to fend him off, almost angry when she thinks of how he's blocked her out only to show himself now, and assail her like this--he won't even speak to her! "What's the _matter_ with you?? Why are you doing this--stop it! I don't want to fight--I don't want to _do_ this!" She lets out an enraged sound and kicks his legs out from under him, moving to pin him with her staff, disengaging the blade on the end at his chest. Her chest heaves, her heart pounding erratically. She is so confused, afraid, startled. Kylo Ren why is he here how did he come here how did he _find_ her he hasn't let her in--she reaches for him desperately but the barrier is still there. She pounds against it, fistlike. _Kylo! What is going on, what are you doing, stop, stop, stop, let me in, stop, I don't want to fight like this, something isn't right--_  
  
On the floor of the cave, Kylo Ren's mask falls away, and she looks into the scarred face beneath. He is impassive, almost, but rage burns in his eyes. He glares up at her and she shivers; this is not right, this is not him, these are not the eyes she knows...  
_"Rey--you know what the right choice is!"_  
  
She twists her head around wildly. Luke is standing nearby, lightsaber in hand, a hard look on his face. Oh no--oh no, he knows, oh the look in his eyes, on his face, he is so disappointed in her, he sees them, he _sees_ them, he knows, he senses, she knows he does. Her heart threatens to beat out of her chest and her gaze flicks from Luke to Kylo Ren and back. _"You know what you should do! The right choice, Rey, for everyone!"_  
  
Rey feels her throat dry out, her breath seems to tear through it with each gulp of air. Her hands feel damp on her staff. The right choice--Kylo Ren stares up at her, wordless in his fury, and Luke takes a step forward. _"Think of the galaxy--the Resistance, your friends. Leia. Han--think of Han. You know what you must do! You can do this, Rey, you have the Light in you!"_  
  
Rey's hands tighten and tremble. The Light, the Resistance--she hears the crackling hum of Kylo Ren's lightsaber and meets his burning gaze. He is so angry, so uncertain, violent; but...but...no! She knows better, by now, doesn't she? She stares at him imploringly, begging him to do something, say something, that will make it so she does not have to make this choice. Where is Ben Solo? Where is the man she has grown accustomed to over these weeks?  
  
_" **REY!** "_  
  
Kylo Ren lets out a furious howl and makes a lunging movement up at her, saber swinging, and Rey cuts him down with a shout, blade through the center of his chest, his eyes wide and staring at her, and the world goes still and silent.  
  
The red saber falls. Kylo Ren--Ben Solo--stares at her, unblinking, and reaches for her.  
Luke's voice at her back, Leia far away, her face in her hands, a heart-wrenching cry.  
Rey's hands drop her staff at the same time and she screams, long and terrified and despairing at the same time, going to her knees, feeling nausea rising in her gut.  
  
_No no no no NO NO NO--_  
  
She doesn't remember how she got out of the cave, in the end. She only knows, afterward, that everything had been a vision; Luke is concerned, thinks perhaps she wasn't ready, tells her she needs to go back to D'Qar and rest, truly rest, and center herself once more before they begin training again. He worries for her, but Rey feels as if she has failed.  
  
Worse still, confronted with her own reaction to seeing Kylo Ren die, she doesn't know what to make of it all.  
  
The bond is still blocked. He is still not there. Later on, Rey is sick, and sits in the dark afterward, feeling hollow and isolated. Morning comes and she tells herself she can sleep when she is back on the base.  
  
Chewie seems to sense something is the matter when he arrives, but says nothing when Rey waves it off. Luke sees her off with something grave and worried in his eyes. He wishes she would stop and tell him everything, but she cannot.  


  


It is two days after her return to the base. She is debating over asking for a sleep-dose, something just to help her rest for a little while. She tries working on the Falcon, tries even taking on work from other pilots, helping fix ships and look at some of the hardware in the larger fleet cruisers. She can't focus; she feels tired and fed up with her own exhaustion. Nineteen years she was alone--at least...most of the nineteen years, and now she's been gutted by letting someone occupy her, and now their sudden disappearance.  


  
It was frustrating, to be as mild as possible.  
  
She is angry with herself for letting him in, angry with him for cutting her off, angry with the others for their inabilities to understand and provide any kind of support for her--which she knows in her heart isn't anyone else's fault, but she is so _angry_...she doesn't know where to direct all of it, just short of throwing her own lightsaber-armed tantrum.  
  
It is late that day, when the sun is beginning to die in the sky, when she feels a strange shift in the Force. She stops what she is doing, tinkering with a flight computer from one of the X-wings, and tries to focus on it, brow knitting, muscles tensing slightly. Something has happened.  
She pushes her boundaries, trying to find it, lock in on the source. Her eyes flash open when she finds it.  
  
_Jakku._  
  
The flight computer is abandoned and Rey is up on her feet, finding her way back to her room, focusing on the problem on Jakku. All she can sense is panic and turmoil, some great upheaval. She has no desire to go back, but...  
  
The feeling becomes almost overwhelming. She felt a rush of anger and struggle, excitement and fear and desperation, pain...  
What was going on? Why was she feeling this, why was she able to sense this so well when Jakku was so far away...  
But she realizes what the reason must be, and her eyes go wide.  
  
He must be there.  
  
Kylo Ren must be on Jakku--but _why?_ What could he be doing there, what could have happened to generate this sort of unrest in the force, strong enough to come through their bond even when he had shut her out himself? Jakku...of all places, _Jakku_...  
Rey's hands ball into fists at her sides and she turns for a moment to look down the hall towards the hangar she's been working in all day--but her brow knits. Her jaw sets.  
She wants answers.  
  
She turns on her heel and heads towards the control chambers and General Organa.  
  
The control room winds up to be relatively quiet compared to other times of greater excitement and impending turmoil; the General is sitting with a few pilots discussing flight patterns and blockade formations, and Rey hangs back a moment to wait for a break in conversation--but Leia is having none of it and pauses their discussion to stand and wave her over.  
  
"Rey--what brings you here? Is everything all right?" Her words are straightforward but her tone and her eyes imply that she understands if Rey does not want to be too forthcoming with company present. The other pilots acknowledge Rey as well, nodding and giving her friendly grins; Rey is a known and welcome presence on the base, she knows this and she has felt welcome, felt like she belongs here, but now...now there is more, there is someone else that she feels...  
  
There is someone else who makes her _feel_.  
  
She tells herself this is the explanation for it. And she tells herself, often, that Ben Solo needs her. That he is still alive. That he can be saved.  
Right now, however, she thinks of Kylo Ren, and she _wants_ \--she wants answers, explanations, the rush of the Force, energy, _touch_...  
  
"I'm sorry for interrupting, General--I wanted to ask if I could...could borrow a ship. If that would be all right? I wouldn't be gone long, I just wanted to--" Leia's brow rises and Rey senses she is surprised Rey hasn't got her own ship by now, though the Falcon requires two pilots for safety and Rey asking for her own ship implies a certain amount of privacy for this trip.  
"Of course, Rey. I'll see that we find you a suitable ship for yourself; when did you want to leave?"  
"I...I wanted to leave, well, _now_ , actually..." Leia looks concerned, as Rey imagined she would.  
"Now? Rey, is everything all right?" She takes Rey a little ways away from the group, at least out of earshot. Rey lets her expression harden slightly and takes a breath.  
"There's just...something I need to do. I want to go now before I start questioning if I'm really ready or not." Leia puts a hand on her arm and Rey wishes so strongly that this woman had been her mother--but this is better than she could ever have asked for, and she is more grateful than words anyways.  
"Rey..." They meet gazes for a long moment, and Leia exhales softly, nodding. "I'll have a ship readied for you immediately. But Rey...be careful." Rey nods, and when the older woman embraces her, she returns the gesture. "May the Force be with you."  
  
She's granted a repurposed and modded quadjumper--it's small and plain enough to evade most larger ships and not attract unwanted attention, and she can pilot it herself. It's been modified, but she knows the basic layout. She's worked on enough of them to know the controls well enough, and she has an emergency pack ready as it is for abrupt trips. She doesn't ever talk about it, but she keeps it all the same. She's always had an emergency bag, even back on Jakku. Just in case. It was always best to be prepared, no matter how secure you felt.  
  
Finn and Poe run into her on her way, and look surprised to see her with a bag.  
"Rey! Hey! You goin' somewhere?"  
"I thought you just got back--need some company?" They were friendly smiles and well-meaning, but she shook her head, mustering a cheerful smile for them.  
"Oh no. Quick trip, just there and back. I'm just checking on something, I should be back by tomorrow at the latest."  
Poe nods, and Finn puts a hand on her arm meaningfully.  
"May the Force be with you, Rey. Be careful, okay?" She nods, and does feel some comfort at the words.  
"I'll be back before you even know it."  
  
During the silence of her trip, she has time to really think about what she's doing.  
  
She hasn't been back to Jakku since she left originally--there was always talk of going back and maybe taking some of her things, but she knew then that once she'd gone, it was only a matter of time before her AT-AT would be plundered, either by bold scavengers or by Unkar Plutt and his thugs. She knew, all the same, that one day she would go back, but she'd continued to put it off. She hasn't felt ready to face the desert planet again, not ready to see the place she had wasted so many years of her life in toil and loneliness.

But this is different. She knows, she _knows_ he is there--she knows it in her soul, and she wants to know _why_. She wants to know why he's shut her out for so long, why he left her alone when she needed someone so much...why he is on Jakku now.  
And she knows, just as with the rest, that going back to the arid planet and finding him means facing her past as well.  
She only hopes she is ready for it. She hopes she is strong enough to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to my beta readers for this chapter! maki & kaitlyn--you two are amazing! <3
> 
> as always, thank you all so much for reading, and sticking with this story! this chapter was a ride; looks like we're going _back_ to _jakku_...


	9. Confluence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jakku._  
>  Confrontation. Desperation. The past.

Jakku is just as she left it.

At least, it seems so on the surface. She preps for landing and sails down towards the outskirts of Niima, but something catches her eye. There is rubble; people are running about, Unkar Plutt's thugs are chasing scavengers away from the--

She blinks, pulling up and circling back overhead, higher now and slower. The Concession Stand is nearly rubble--something's smashed in the front wall and there are people rushing about down below. Her eyes go wide at this and for a moment she watches scavengers run from the Blobfish's boys with their arms full, but then she turns to look off over the horizon. Kylo Ren isn't here anymore, not at Niima Outpost. She doesn't know why he was here, why he destroyed the stand, but she knows that he did. And now she knows where he must be.

She guides the quadjumper off towards Carbon Ridge, out into the Goazon, down the same path she took, day after day, from Niima into the Badlands again. Her heart is thrumming in her chest with the memory of it; nothing changed. Nothing different. Sand. Skeletons. Metal. The occasional steelpecker. And then a flash, light off of gleaming metal in the distance. She speeds forward, sand billowing up in the wake of the ship as she skims as low as she can, simply by force of habit, over the dunes and down towards the Ravine, but not too far, just over that high dune--and then there it is.  
She can see the old metal head mournfully emerging from the sand, the legs even more buried now so that the feet of the thing can barely be seen anymore--but the gullet is still accessible from the front. There is a hole in the hull, large and crudely punched, metal twisted and torn and poking out awkwardly from the entry point. Rey feels hardened, cold even. She knew this would happen. She knows now like she did before just what she's going to find inside. She swallows, and has to relax her hands on the controls, taking a shaking breath.  
_Control your feelings, you can do this._ It's Luke's voice more than her own, and she doesn't necessarily like all of the connotation with it, but she needs something right now, something to help steady her. Anything.

Just off a few yards away is the ship she knows will be there. Gleaming chromium black over the golden sand, pristine and sleek and intimidating, is Kylo Ren's Upsilon-Class shuttle. Rey can't help but admire it for a moment; she's seen this craft more than once now and it is still a magnificent piece of work, even if her mind is on other things right now. He is here, he is here, he is inside her old home, and Rey will...will go in after him. Will face him. Will face her past.  
Her chest feels tight and she feels almost afraid--what if she isn't ready for this? What if she can't do this? What if he doesn't want to see her--

The ship touches down and she nearly jumps with the landing impact. It isn't harsh, but the fact that she's there, _on_ Jakku again officially is jolting. She feels her heartbeat quicken again and swallows, trying to steady her breathing. This will be fine, she can do this, she _has_ to do this--she wants to see him, she wants to see him again, to understand...

She still knows the smell of the air. Hot and dry and carrying scents of decay and metal and something not unlike smoke on the wind. She knows this smell, knows this heat. Her hair flutters around her neck in a breeze and she licks her lips, the old heat still familiar to her, even in new clothes. She still knows this place, and it knows her.  
Her steps are almost calculated from her ship, down over the sand, down past the toes of the walker, towards the gullet of it. The hull has been badly damaged. Her security system has been decimated, she can see where her receptors and pulse emitters have been torn out. She can see inside the belly of the AT-AT, where a figure in dark clothing stands, illuminated by sunlight streaming down through the twisted and angry hole punched through the layers of the hull.  
Her breath catches and she feels herself start to shake. He's right there-- _right there_ \--right in front of her; even when they were speaking, they hadn't been this close. Not in months, not since...

Her hands tremble and her legs tremble and her breath trembles and her heart beats in her throat and before she knows it she is throwing herself at the entrance of the walker's belly, rushing at the man inside her old home, and the sudden smack of energy that rushes through the bond when he reopens their connection, the sound of his voice again after so long, stuns her so roughly that she can't stop herself, and barrels right into him.

He is so wrapped up in his own emotions that he does not sense her approaching, and when Rey crashes into him, it is nearly simultaneous with him taking down his defenses.  
He is stunned for a long moment; her actual presence, her physical presence, is so unexpected that he cannot believe what is happening. Rey-- _Rey_ \--she is here, truly here, here with him now. They haven't been physically together since that day on D'Qar, and after all of this time, being able to truly touch her is more than he could have imagined it would be.

His mantle falls back and his eyes are wide; he has to nearly catch her to keep the both of them upright, stumbling back through the sand and debris on the floor of the fallen walker. His hands are on her arms but they nearly hover over her skin, the touch is so light, so hesitant, so disbelieving. How is she here, how did she know, how did she figure it out? Is she _truly_ here? Is he hallucinating, imagining her with him in a delusional attempt to bring her close again without endangering her or taking his chances with their bond?  
Rey's eyes are wide and she stares at him in shock, and her thoughts crash through the bond as if they've been pent up behind the barrier and waiting for release. He feels his mouth go dry, his own eyes wide as well, his body almost stiff. He feels like this is a dream, if he moves he may wake, and Rey will be gone again.  
She backs away from him, but she is still there, still imploring him for answers. She is upset, so upset, so confused, so overwhelmed, what has happened, what is wrong…  
  
The sudden impact, the collision of their two energies, the touch of their bodies in real-world, is so jarring it knocks a hard gasp out of her.  
Oh _Maker_...She can't breathe, she can't think, she can't speak, but he is here, he is here and she is here, and they can _touch_ , and why is he here, why has he come here, why...  
Rey can't speak. She can barely form coherent thoughts for a moment, having to push herself away from him and staring up at his bare face in shocked silence, her eyes wide and her hands trembling.  
_Ben_ \--Kylo Ren, _Kylo Ren Kylo Ren_ it echoes, she tells herself do not use the name now, not now after everything, the timing isn't right yet but it will be one day _Kylo Ren why--why here, why here, why Jakku, why so long, why why--_ Her thoughts are a jumble and they flow between them, disjointed and pained and insistent, begging him for an explanation, desperate to know _what is going on?_

"Kylo Ren..." Her voice is dry and cracking, so unsure, so hesitant. "What are you _doing_ here?"

He feels himself inhale sharply.  
"Rey--I..." His brow knits, however.

_Why are you here--how did you know to come here, how did you find me?_  
If she can find him, then how good are his defenses?

If she can find him, then who else can find him? Can find _both_ of them?

He stares at her and wants to touch her, wants to reach out to her, thinks of the marks on the wall beside them and aches for her again. His Rey, lonely for so long, waiting for so long...but what can he do now?  
He runs through a myriad of emotions and Rey is overwhelmed with him. He is disbelieving, but there is fear in him and she does not understand why. Her brow knits some and she stares at him--he does not believe this is real, that she is really here for a moment, and she thinks a bit bitterly that perhaps that is because he's shut her out for so long, but she does not voice this.  
_How did you know, how did you find me--_ she hears him thinking quickly, fear tinting his words in their bond. He worries about her being able to find him, if she can, then who else can? Who else...who else, who else?

He steps towards her after a moment and she does not back away, stands her ground and faces him. The look in her eyes almost dares him to move closer, to try and reach for her, to try and touch her--she is still unsure if she wants to allow it or to strike him, upset and somehow glad to see him all at once. It is strange and frustrating; she's never felt like this before, she isn't sure that she likes it much.  
His brow knits and he takes a step towards her.  
"This isn't safe," his voice is low, quiet. No one else is there but he feels fear that they will be heard. "You can't be here. You need to leave, Rey. Now." The words are poison in his mouth, he wants to take them back. He wants _her_ , he still cannot believe she is _here_ , so close after so long, but this is dangerous and he does not know how to protect her yet.

Rey's breath catches and she feels fury swell up in her until it bursts and she can feel his ache, she can feel that he does not want her to go, but it makes no difference to her now.  
"You can't tell me to leave--this was _my_ home! You're the one trespassing here, you're the one who shouldn't be here!" She steps towards him now, slams her foot into the metal floor of the room, and the sound reverberates off the walls of the fallen walker. Kylo Ren does not back away, preparing to face her fury, but then she looks into his eyes, and--  
She glares up at him, angry for the past few weeks, but she sees the look in his eyes and for a moment she flashes back to her experience in the Cave, and she feels a flash of cold, remembering the look she'd seen on his face when she killed that...that...copy of him, whatever it had been. Her anger deflates in her and she jerks back, breath hitching in her throat with a soft gasp.

Why--why, why hadn't he been there, why had he shut her out like that--her brow sagged some and she felt a tightness in her chest. She tried to look away, look elsewhere, but all she could see was everything she'd had, and now lost, everything she'd left behind, her eyes find the marks on the wall now and there are so, so many, too many, too many for too long, why did she stay, why did she believe so hard for so long--

Kylo Ren feels everything go silent suddenly when she reacts, tearing away from him.  
Rey lets out a strangled sob and claps a hand to her mouth, her body buckling some under the weight of all of it. It's hard to breathe and she doesn't want to cry but everything is so heavy and she doesn't know what to do with all of it. She had thought....she had thought that he would be someone to talk to, and now that she thought about it she felt foolish for it, for believing in something that she recognized was ridiculous later.

She shouldn't have come here.  
He was right, she needed to leave. She couldn't will her body to move, couldn't make her feet _go_. Why were things like this, why did things have to continue like this?  
He gets a flash of something, a memory, but he does not understand it. Rey gasps, and he is so confused; what is happening, why is she reacting like this, why does he feel so much _pain_ coming from her?  
Rey is hurting, she is so upset, she is so confused and so bitter and so _disappointed_ \-- His brow knits and he steps towards her again, trying to feel more, trying to understand, but then Rey sobs, and he freezes in place, eyes widening.

_What…_

He can only feel hurt from her now. So much hurt, so much hurt for so long, everyone that has hurt her, and left her, and let her _believe_ \--she feels like a fool, she feels shame and anger and disgust with herself, so long she waited, so long she believed, and now him, and--  
Another flash. She is _disappointed_ in him. He has failed her, he was not there, he did not come for her, he left her...

Kylo Ren reels back from her in shock. A mistake--this was a mistake, it was a mistake, but not her, not Rey, he would never abandon her, not like she believes.  
_Shut her out, push her away,_ he is reminded; perhaps he would not abandon her, but he would wall her off from her connection with him. His mouth goes dry and he drags a hand over the lower half of his face, realization settling in. _Rey…_

She wants to leave, he can feel it, and he knows that it will be better if she does--no more risk, no more danger, out of Snoke's reach, away from _him_ and the pain he has caused her. But he does not want her to go.  
He moves to her now, leaning in and reaching tentatively, so slowly and carefully, to touch her, to try and comfort her. His Rey, his beacon in the Force, Rey is so distraught, he needs to do something, to _help_ her, to make it _stop_.  
_Please...you don't understand, you don't **understand** , there is too much at stake, and you…_  
"Rey...Rey, please..."

She wants to run away, to get away from this, to get away from feeling like this--she hates it, she hates feeling so foolish and so vulnerable and so _stupid_. She is not a child anymore, she does not believe in these things anymore, she does not trust like she did before...but she can see Kylo Ren's eyes when she closes her own and she knows that she let him in, that she wanted to believe him, to...

He is trying to talk to her, to communicate, but she cannot hear him, does not want to let him in again, disappointment, _you only disappointed me, you weren't there, you don't know, let me down, don't come near, not again, not again, **not again…**_  
She thinks of Jakku, she thinks of burning gold sand and empty skies, day after day, ships that come and go and never see her, never take her, never bring her back to her people, away from this junkyard--she numbs herself to it, works day after day, tells herself _This is not in vain, They are coming back for me_ , dulls the sting of remembering that she does not recall their faces with hours of long, hard toil in the burning insides of fallen starships. After so long, the pain is not as harsh. She is accustomed to people coming and going. She acknowledges the loss, and lives on; a creature of work and sun and dirt and _habit_. Troade came and went, she recalled his softer demeanor with her. Mashra is missed, she had always been good to her, Rey was sad to see Mashra go when she did. But none of the losses had destroyed her after the first. People came and went. Material objects came and went. Life continued.

But when Maz Kanata looked her in the eyes, Rey knew she could not run from the truth any longer.  
_"...You already know the truth. Whoever you've been waiting for...they're never coming back."_

She had wept over it then, but had ran. She ran and ran from it all--until finally three months after everything had taken place, it finally caught up to her. Rey had wept for everything, for the lost years, for every time she had been offered passage off of Jakku, for every time she had insisted on staying, every mark on the wall. She had wept, and then just...continued living.

Now, she felt a strange familiar feeling that reminded her of those tears. Feeling foolish, feeling angry and abandoned--why, why now is she feeling them again? Because of Kylo Ren? Why--why would she let someone in like that, why would she trust someone, anyone, but least of all someone like _him_?

She grits her teeth and balls her fists, raging inwardly at her own foolishness and at him for being there and again at herself for letting him so close again.  
She is jarred from her thoughts by the soft, careful touch of his hand on her arm--but even that slight touch startles her. She feels him, feels the distinct sensation in her that she calls _Kylo Ren_ and lashes out in surprised fury, sending him skidding back through the sand until he hits the corner wall of the fallen walker, and hard. The sound of it resounds through the small dwelling and reverberates off the metal walls, the silence that falls magnifying it further.

Rey is breathing hard and stares at him, arm still outstretched from her metaphysical push, eyes wide. She hadn't...she hadn't meant to--but it was him, it was _him_ \--she should not be with him in the first place, should not trust him or speak to him or be near him at all, and yet...  
He senses something, she is remembering something, she is not seeing him, not feeling him, not _there_ ; he very carefully probes, tries to feel into her consciousness to understand, but the moment he touches her, physically and metaphysically, she snaps, startles, and he is suddenly being shoved away from her, hard, his boots skidding through the sand, catching on debris and toppling him backwards against one of the metal walls. It hurts; he hits his head, his back slams into the hard surface hard enough to make the place shudder some, the bang ringing through the small enclosure and echoing outside over the sand. His ankle turns some, he is jarred and stunned for a few seconds, but the hurt is dulled by the raging anger that has him back on his feet in no time, moving against the aching in his body from the impact.  
"Is this how you want things--is this what you intended in coming here? If you want to fight then that's _exactly_ what we'll do!" he snarls, advancing a step towards her, reaching for his lightsaber, livid and startled by the sudden push, the sudden rejection--he wanted to help her, he wanted to comfort her, and she pushes him away, thrusts him away from her--everything they have done, everything they have been through, and she still--

She does not apologize, does not go to his side. She is not all that worried about his health; she has seen Kylo Ren get up and swing his lightsaber after sustaining more damage than she's ever seen anyone take before. He gets back to his feet and she senses him going for his saber but she cannot move to find her own, and she does not want to fight, does not want to _do_ this, does not want to be here anymore, he is so angry with her now and so upset at her for pushing him away, he thinks _she_ doesn't understand and he is right, he is so right, but all the same he doesn't understand either--she does go still, however, watching him but seeing something near him unearthed by the rush of motion, hidden under sand and debris from her former shelving.

A doll.

_Her_ doll, her first and oldest friend. Captain Raeh, made by her own hands, made as best as she could at such a young age, the only toy she had owned, her little secret bit of whimsy and childhood in this harsh place. She was still there, still here, still hers, Rey stares, mouth slightly agape at this strange turn of events. She had thought everything would be gone. Even her lamps are gone, her hammock, her pillow. But her doll...  
She feels frozen, unable to move forward and pick it up, take it back into her hands. Can this possibly be here, still, dirty and a bit torn, but still hers--she feels tears in her eyes, her throat dry. There is no place for hope or play on Jakku, of course no one took it, the one little bit of happiness she had allowed herself, somehow it was still there, still hers, it had _survived_ , survived like she had, still there for her to find again...

She suddenly remembers so vividly the day she found the fallen walker.  
Sun burning on her skin, she feels so tender and hot and desolate, she is so afraid and so small and so desperate, she will never survive here, it is too hot, too harsh, too frightening, she cannot do it, she is too small and too soft and too young, how can she live?  
There is a spinebarrel. She remembers it so perfectly, the little green sprouting from the old, rusted joint. She had felt so overwhelmed just then--the little plant had managed to grow, and Rey feels hot tears on her cheeks, a sob in her throat, and she is back in the here and now again, facing Kylo Ren, her eyes on her doll and a hand on her mouth, her entire body trembling with the effort of keeping in her sobs. She feels so _much_ , it threatens to all spill out at once and she is so afraid, so unprepared, so uncertain about releasing it all and feeling it all, and feeling this in front of _him_ but the bond, the bond, he knows already, he knows by now, she cannot hide anything, why is he here for _this_ , why not _before_...

She feels--she feels _stupid_ ; she hasn't felt quite like this since she was a child. He can feel it in her, she feels angry for it and he feels her anger in him, magnifying his own. It begins to build in him with each passing moment, each new thought from her, each addition to her anger and her upset; she thinks he disappointed her and he is furious with her for this, but blames himself for blocking her as well, rages despite the fact that he knows she does not understand all of his motivations for everything he does.  
He grits his teeth and his brow furrows, he wants to grab her and crush her to him and make her understand things, to explain everything to her, to explain himself and how he cannot allow her in so deep sometimes, he cannot allow her to see such things, feel such things, try and bring such things to the surface in him--she does not know the danger that lies in wait, and if he has anything to do with it she never will. She will never be subjected to the things he has been, Snoke will never hurt her, will never make her like the Knights of Ren, like _him_. His Rey...she is going to be kept from all of that, for as long as she lives. He will ensure it himself.

Rey is staring and not seeing him, however.  
He is momentarily stopped by this, his seething anger with her dialing back slightly at this bizarre reaction.  
"What..." He follows her gaze and sees what she is seeing, now.  
There is...some kind of bundling of cloth? Orange and white--he looks down at the thing near his boot and his brow knits. What is this? He leans down to pick it up, and Rey's memories wash over him at the same moment his fingers touch the old, fraying cloth.  
_Captain Raeh, first friend, oldest friend, only hope, only happiness, only toy, mine, mine, only thing I own, made by my hands, doll, companion--_ His eyes go wide as he lifts the thing--the doll--carefully from where it's been buried. A doll. Rey's _doll_ \--he can feel so many years in it, so much emotion, care, and love, all from Rey, and he stares, unable to process all of it, but he hasn't the time anyways.

He sees what Rey is remembering, tiny girl, tiny human in the sand, so hot and so sad and so afraid, so desperate and so near giving up, she wants her family wants her people back wants home, where is home, what is she going to do--his throat tightens and he feels his chest ache. What...what… _is_ this? Such a small girl, small fragile soft thing, pink and turned red by the sun, tears are so hot and sweat makes her so thirsty but there is not enough water not enough food nowhere to feel safe anymore and then there is the walker, the AT-AT, he sees it in her memories sees the small, strange plant, feels heat on his cheeks and he sees Rey in real-time sobbing and he feels damp on his own face, stunned by everything, unable to think or speak, her overwhelming emotions making his muscles contract and ache with his effort to not shake like she is.  
_Rey...oh Rey, oh Rey, oh Rey…_

He cannot think anything else. Rey, his Rey, how long was she _here_? How old was she, how old could she have been, who left her, who abandoned her here? Who left her with that filthy creature in Niima, who could have deserted such a tiny child--  
Kylo Ren is furious and so, so sorrowful for her, for his Rey, his Rey, his abandoned girl--oh, she will never be alone again, she will never be deserted again, mistake, blocking her was a mistake, he knows the hurt of being so alone, he knows it, feels it resonate in her just as it does in his own consciousness, and he does not care now what she will do, what she has done.  
She doesn't see him pick up her doll, but she senses the jolt of emotion though him, and she knows he's seen her memories. She feels miserable, thinking of this; when they met he called her 'scavenger' and she knew, she knew, she was not good enough, never good enough, is not enough to fulfill this task they expect of her, just a scavenger, _just a scavenger…_  
She does not notice him closing the gap between them until she is crushed against his chest.

In two swift steps, he has crossed the threshold between them and drawn her into his arms, taking her free hand and pressing the doll into her palm, his arms tight around her after he does. She trembles in his grasp and he feels the jerks and the hiccups of her restrained sobs and brings a hand to press her head to his shoulder, his fingers careful in her brown hair. He does not know what he is doing, this is unfamiliar territory, his movements are somewhat rapid and stiff, inexperienced, but determined. Rey's eyes go wide and her breath hitches in her throat but she cannot move; he has given her back her doll and now she can feel his arms around her, tightly holding her to him. She can sense the underlying concern that she might push him away again, feels his muscles tense some for a moment as he reaches to rest a hand on the back of her head. She feels...she feels stunned, still struggling not to cry, but this is....  
This is different than the embraces she swaps with the other Resistance pilots, different than the embraces she's been given by the General or by Finn. She thinks for a moment to pull away, to stop this, she is still upset with him, shouldn't be here with him, has fought for months to keep herself from touching him or letting him touch her, afraid of what might happen, but... Kylo Ren is broad and enveloping, his arms are hard and strong and there is an uncertainty to all of it, to his movements and the gesture, and she senses caution and a sense of inexperience, but it is warm. When his voice comes between the two of them, quiet and firm, she feels his heart beating against her and she doesn't fight anymore.  
The effort to hold in her crying makes her shake and bow, her face in her hands, her toes curling in her boots. She feels foolish for doing this in front of _him_ , especially, but she cannot figure out a way to stop it.

_Cry._ It is a quiet command between them, his arm stays tight around her back, his hand presses gently against the back of her head. There is a flash of something, a memory he does not want: a gentle hand, a soft, patient voice.

_"Cry, Ben. It's just you and me, little fighter. It's okay to cry when you need to, it's okay."_

His fingers curl into her hair slightly and he _holds_ her. It is everything, _everything_ , to feel her in his arms like this, to feel her against him. Everything is Rey, and himself, and he does not know how to comfort her but he will do anything he can to try. He knows the words, cannot bring them to reality now, this is enough, this is enough.

_Cry._

_Cry, Rey. It...It's just you and me._

Rey _sobs._  
Her fingers curl around the doll of Captain Raeh and Rey weeps, burying her face in the rough, thick fabric settled around Kylo Ren's shoulders. She can't remember crying like this, not at least in recent history, but she can't stop it now. She lets him hold her and can't articulate that she is glad for his presence, regardless of how things have been up to this point, but she tries her best to get it across through the bond. This is nothing she has ever had before, nothing she is familiar with either; no one held her when she cried before, alone in this fallen walker and missing her people. No one held her when she was hurt, the times she broke bones or her skin was too burnt by the sun. No one _held_ her--she shared embraces with the others, but the only one that had come close to this was...

One of Rey's hands leaves the doll and slowly curls fingers into the cloth of Kylo's shirt. His arms are _so like_ his mother's, but different, so different, she wishes she could tell Leia this, she wishes she could do more, but right now, she feels his arms around her, feels his fingers in her hair, and Rey can only focus on him.  
_Weren't there you weren't there I needed you and you weren't there,_ it comes tumbling out, insistent and upset, and she takes a shuddering breath, shutting her eyes tightly. _Missed you, I missed you…_ she can't take it back now, realizes it's the truth, doesn't know what to do now that it's been given a voice. She missed him. She can feel him trying to show her he is sorry for things he cannot explain and she knows he is sincere, they are _physically_ together, now; the bond is as wide open as it's ever been, there is nothing to hide, here. She feels so much relief at the release of it, though, and presses her forehead to his shoulder. _I missed you…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shout out to my beta reader, maki! you're the best! @ v@ <3  
> thanks to everyone out there for reading--i'm amazingly grateful for every comment and kudos you all leave <3
> 
> jakku was cathartic to get around to; giving rey her doll back was something i've wanted to do. captain raeh's seen our scavenger through a lot of years.  
> now that sunshine&the human disaster are together again, who knows what's going to happen next...
> 
> also! there are two playlists set up for this story so far, and if anyone's interested, you can find links to listen and tracklistings for both of them here:  
> [bond, I](http://raindropwaltz.tumblr.com/post/159096593625/b-o-n-d-i-a-two-part-playlist-for-my-fic)  
> [bond, II](http://raindropwaltz.tumblr.com/post/159100919090/b-o-n-d-ii-a-two-part-playlist-for-my-fic)


	10. Collision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Touch._  
>  Need. Hunger. Escalating desire.

Rey thinks for a moment of pushing him away again but his arms stay strong around her, careful not to hurt her but not letting her go. _Let me help you let me do this_ Kylo Ren knows he is not skilled at this but Rey is his, and he knows this kind of sorrow, and if he must learn to comfort for her sake, then he will.  
He can feel her heart fluttering in her chest, so close are the two of them now, and there is a moment when everything seems to go still, and silent, and he wonders if this really was a mistake, if he said the wrong thing, if it was too presumptuous and now _he_ feels like the fool, but then--  
Rey begins to cry.

He can feel her shaking in his arms, can feel the fabric on his shoulder start to dampen from her tears. Rey _sobs_ , her fingers curl into his clothing and she weeps against his shoulder, and lets him hold her. He's startled by this for a moment, his eyes wide, body totally still, but then he brings her close against him, curling around her and leaning his head over hers as if bringing her into himself to protect her. She is strong, so much stronger than she realizes sometimes, but right now, Rey is small, and vulnerable, and human. Kylo Ren curls around her as if to swallow her up and Rey lets him. Feels his cheek against her hair and her breath is ragged, eyes tightly shut against his shoulder. If she looks up, what will she see? If she moves, what will happen? She is pressed to him so tightly that she can feel his heart beating in her chest. She feels _everything_ \--almost painfully, almost blissfully, he feels it like she does, ecstasy and fear and so, so much power, and she thinks _this is dangerous_ , but it is not enough to stop her. _This is dangerous…_

Rey seems to shift into his embrace, seems to press closer all on her own, lets him envelop her in his arms, lets him hold her, and Kylo Ren has never known this kind of peace within himself. He feels everything in her, everything, _everything_ , and he is stunned, delighted, to find that she feels what he does, the elation, the uncertainty, the _power_ \--hears her murmur into the bond, and responds before he even intends to.  
_Don't be afraid,_ he murmurs back, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips, _we are the danger._  
But he is real against her, real and firm and alive, enough for her to touch and feel the fabric over his skin, enough to feel the heat from his face against her hair, his breath tickling near her ear.

Feeling her in his arms like this is ecstasy--she is vital and warm and _real_ , and Force, he's wanted this for so long, just to be able to feel her against him like this, to feel her firm and real with him...but not like this. She is so distraught, he can feel all of it inside of her, so close this way. The bond flows between them unrestrained, and she is _part_ of him now; he feels her heart beating like it is his own, feels her breath coming in time with his own.

But just so, he feels what she is feeling, and hears her words come across between them as clearly as if she were speaking aloud.  
_Weren't there you weren't there I needed you and you weren't there_ , she sends him, and his arms tighten around her, his cheek pressed to her hair.  
_Sorry, sorry, I am so sorry,_ he responds, insistent and firm, _believe me, trust me, you are the only one who can, the only one…_ her chest heaves with the effort to breathe and not start sobbing again because she knows, she _knows,_ but then his voice comes and shatters everything.  
And then…

_Missed you, I missed you…_

He goes still, and his fingers curl into her hair, his arms pressing her to his chest as tightly as he can. _Rey_ , oh Rey, his Rey, if she knew--but she knows, she must know, his fingers press into her back and hold her head close, and her hair is soft and warm against his cheek. _I missed you…_  
"I'm so sorry, Rey..." His voice breaks the silence, low and quiet, rumbling some from the ragged feeling of her sobbing in his throat. There is a small pause, a heavy pause, and he takes a small, rushed breath. "I missed you, too." It is hesitant, but quiet enough for only her to hear, and he speaks it aloud to solidify the statement. He missed her, he missed her just as terribly, just as he does anytime she is gone. His voice rumbles against her, and Rey can feel it vibrate in his chest. She inhales and it is nearly a gasp, choked and drowning in the tears still falling, but she knows it is the _truth_ , and she doesn't know what to do, what to say, everything is so amplified here and there is so much and she can feel so much…

His fingers run through her hair, against her scalp, down the line of her neck, he pulls her in and Rey wants it, swallows and tries to breathe, breathe, fall in time with him, breathe with him, they are nearly in sync and she feels herself calming with him and wonders for a small moment if she can do this from far away when she feels the disquiet in _him_ , if this is something they can do for one another, but he pulls her away from that train of thought.  
Rey wants this, wants...there is so much between them, so much energy and so many strange new sensations, and he feels her _breathing_ , feels himself quieting with her, strokes her hair and savors every feeling and every single moment of this, of her presence, of being with her and feeling her in his arms, feeling this energy all around them, inside both of them; which is an entirely new experience all together--are they separate beings or one entity, he feels almost unsure for a moment, feels her breathing and her heart beating in his chest, and does not know who is who just then.

But now she is here, now she is _here_ , and in his arms, and everything is right again, he will fix things, they will be right again, both of them, the two of them together. He feels powerful with her, he knows she feels it too. His hand roams her back, the opposite running fingers through her hair, exploring the curve of her head and down to her neck. He wants to memorize her--she is just as he remembers and still so different--and he can feel her calming finally.  
_Tell me why you're so upset. Tell me what I missed,_ he coaxes, _I want to know. I want to understand. I am sorry, Rey, I am sorry._

His arms are so tight around her it's almost overwhelming, but she doesn't want it to stop. Her fingers grasp at his clothing and she grits out her tears, letting out what feels like years and years of sobbing, everything she ever held in on this planet, everything she has held in on D'Qar, on Dagobah…  
His voice is so...gentle. More gentle than she remembers, almost alien in how softly he coaxes her to tell him why she is upset. She isn't sure she prefers this to the heat and energy of shouting or fighting, strangely, but it is soft and comforting and she understands that she needs this right now, more than she needs a confrontation. She is not used to anyone simply asking her these things, not like this, and it catches her somewhat off-guard.

She takes a deep breath and swallows and tries to think calmly, tries to explain. Rey begins, and Kylo Ren can feel the joy deflating in him.  
_I didn't...I didn't understand why you shut me out. I didn't think you would, you were so angry when I did it to you, and I…_ Her eyes open and she can't bring herself to look at him yet, trying to piece her words together. _I **needed** you, I-I needed someone to talk to, and...and to help me. I didn't know what I was getting into and I…_ She shuts her eyes again, feeling the same disappointment and shame come over her as before, the nausea from that day and everything she saw. _I wasn't ready, in the end. I don't think I should have gone, I didn't know what to do, I…_ her fingers curl into a tight fist and she has to release his shirt, crushing her doll in her grasp now, trying not to hurt it all the same. She needed him, she needed guidance, she needed companionship and he failed her. She was alone she was alone she--she feels the same sickness in her gut at the memory, feels the tears threatening again, those visions, those visions, she doesn't want to think of them, she doesn't want to do this again--

_Blaster shots, shouting in some far-off place. Yellow lightsabers, smoke-smell. Battle around in some unseen reaches. Attack orders, Finn! Finn! Fear, uncertainty, she wants to run she wants to run--and then He is there, he is attacking her, she does not want this does not want to fight please stop please--she hears her own voice from that day_ "Stop--Stop, Kylo please--stop, something's wrong, stop--" _but he will not stop and he is there but not there, will not let her in, she pleads with him and he ignores her and then there is Luke and she does not want this do not make me do this please please anything but this anything--her lightsaber seems to shriek and the world goes silent and still and she can see the burning blade lights in his eyes and she wants it all to stop--_

This memory hits him just as the last did, hard and cruel and far too real, he remembers this with her, despite his absence at the time. His brows knit and he feels his heart rate pick up with hers, his stomach churns, what is this, where is he--where are they--blasters! Shouting; he knows these voices, Resistance? The world seems to spin, he cannot tell what is real, where he is, where they are, is this the cave still? He feels the cold fear in her, the dizzying uncertainty, his eyes dart about wildly but he sees--

Himself?

He freezes amidst the chaos of everything in her memory, watches her confront him, sees the strangeness in all of it. Is this him? He feels her panic and his throat tightens, hears her pleading and no, Rey, no, I would never, _never, Rey!_ But Rey panics, Rey begs him to stop, no, this isn't right, no--Rey is terrified and then there is his Uncle, Skywalker himself, he goads her, Rey feels his words reverberating in her and she acts impulsively, and everything goes still and silent and _Rey...._  
In realtime, Rey feels bile racing up her throat and swallows it back, gasping for breath at the sting of it and the pressure of breathing and crying and the horrible cold of the memory and she buckles in on herself, her knees give and she goes down hard into the sand, the noise of it echoing around them, her doll falling into her lap as she puts her hands to her face. _Can't do it didn't want to do it wasn't ready wasn't ready I wasn't ready…_

He feels the wave of nausea hit her and his eyes go wide, staring down at her in horror now. What--what is this--what is she--  
Rey is retching, swallowing bile and struggling not to be sick, collapsing to her knees and he is struck by this, still and horrified by what he's seen. What… _How could he have let her face this alone?_

For a moment he is too stunned to move, staring down at Rey in the sand, her face in her hands. He can hardly believe this is his Rey, his Scavenger girl, the beacon of power he's been drawn to for months on end--this girl is terrified and sick with anxiety, but he is hit with the notion that Rey is so unsettled, was so disturbed, by the fact that she saw _him_ die at her hands. It is a jarring notion; watching himself die in her eyes is not something he would like to do again, but all the same… He is on his knees and leaning over her finally, pulling her close and carefully taking her hands from her face to hold them in his own.

Everything is so strong and so magnified and Rey is so afraid she'll be sick, feels the sand under her legs and the hard metal beneath and wishes things were simple again, before she knew about all of this--the Jedi, the darkness and the light, the greater wars, the _Force_ \--but now she can never go back.  
And then...and then there is _him_. Suddenly Kylo Ren is all around her again, taking her hands from her face, bringing her to him. She gasps for breath at the sudden feeling of being laid bare, her wretched expression completely unobscured, tears marking her face in bands through the dust that's begun to cover her skin from being in this old, desolate place.

His fingers hold hers fast and she hasn't the strength to pull away. She doesn't _want_ to pull away. Why can't she let herself be comforted, why can't she let this be, his voice draws her gaze to his face and she tries to breathe, eyes searching for something to focus on, almost afraid to meet his until finally they do. Up over the smooth lines of his face until she reaches that, reaches her own handiwork, her _brand_ on him, follows it up to his eyes and she is caught suddenly. She hates these eyes, she...she...she swallows, unable to break the gaze, and she feels him doing something strange, something she wants to learn.  
"Rey...Rey, look at me..." he coaxes her, leaning down close, craning his neck slightly, insistent that she obey. His fingers squeeze her hands gently and he draws her in closer still, and now he tries to tap into this strange power of theirs, tries to use it to calm her. _Breathe with me, Rey,_ he wills her silently, and she can _feel_ him breathing with her, feels his steady heartbeat and his breathing starting to take over her own. _So long as you breathe you survive._ An old mantra, an old lesson. So long as you breathe, you survive. He could survive anything, just find breath. Rey would do the same, she could do the same. She manages the slightest nod, a jerk of her head. Breathe. She can do that, she can survive. She's done that for years.  
Now she isn't alone.

He is so close, so close, she feels her breathing fall in time to his and she feels herself calming and she is in awe of this...this… _bond_ , what it can do. His thumbs rub her palms and she wishes he wasn't in his gloves, wants to feel his bare hands, his bare skin.

Rey calms with him, she _breathes_ with him, and Kylo Ren feels their shared breath filling his lungs, steadying his heart. He feels Rey's fingers curl around his, senses her disappointment at his covered hands. The gloves again, of course...But she feels calmed, comforted, and that is what matters now. Rey is in awe of the bond, and it makes him feel as if he's swelling up with satisfaction.  
Rey leans in with him when he moves closer. Rey wants this, Rey _wants_ this…  
"My Rey..." He breathes her name, thumbs rubbing into her palms, holding her to him. His mouth is so near hers, so dangerously close, but not yet, _not yet._ She finds she cannot rebuke him for it now, feels his breath on her skin in a way she's only dreamed about, imagined knowing, and Rey's fingers curl around his, her body arches to meet his, her lips part and she _breathes_.  
"You're stronger than this," he rumbles, deep in his chest, "You know you are. It was an illusion, a trick of the Force. Your fear did that."  
Fear, anger. Her overwhelming emotions when she went into the cave. She was thinking of him--if only he'd been stronger that night, if he hadn't pushed her away, shut her out…

_Never again, Rey, I promise--I swear to you._ His voice is firm, determined. _I won't fail you like that again. Never, Rey, never--you will **never** be alone that way again._  
"You should fear nothing." He rumbles again, low and nearly playful. Rey will have nothing to fear soon; she is strong on her own, but she will not be alone anymore. " _We_ are stronger than the things we fear. You with me, Rey." _My Rey…_ His voice is low, nearly a purr that makes her skin tingle and makes her _feel_ strong, in the way he speaks of, in the way he sees her. There is almost an edge of...of teasing? Mischief? In his voice when he speaks again, and she shivers, unable to break their gaze as he leans closer and she feels herself reciprocating the movement. _Maker_...she wants this. She wants him, she wants to feel this, wants what he is playing at doing.  
Her skin is so warm, her hands are warm and firm in his, her body is real and solid and vital against him, and he will not be held back, not here, not now, not anymore. The Force seems to hover around them, waiting, poised to strike, almost, waiting, waiting, sensing something coming, Rey feels it hover, _wait_ , coiled like a sandsnake ready to strike, and then all at once, it does.

Kylo Ren closes the distance between them, and this time when his mouth meets Rey's, there is no clash of teeth and skin and blood. There is a rush--a pure rush of energy, emotion, heat. Their lips touch and there is nothing else in all existence, only Rey, only him. Her hands in his, her chest against his, his mouth on hers. The Force rushes around them like a river, like an ocean current, all electricity and power and the energy of _everything_.

He releases one of her hands to cradle her head, keeping her close, needing more of her, never wanting to pull away from her again. Rey tastes just as she did, just as she does when he remembers, and still there is so much more. Power and sunlight, heat and sand and sweat and stardust, tall grass and mountain top air, Rey, _Rey…_  
When Kylo Ren kisses her this time, it is not the sting of flesh and the burning of blood she feels, it is the surge of energy, the softness of warm skin and lips she has felt only in her imagination. This is softness like she has never known, sweetness that she's never thought would be hers, a kiss she never would have imagined from _him_ , and there is nothing else in the universe at this moment. The Force is alive around them, crashing in waves over them like a wild sea, worked into a frenzy by their contact, it seems. He tastes just as she remembers it, without blood and rain and sweat--like night air and clean spaces, like cool shade and deep water and _power._

Her chest presses against his and he draws her in like a shadow and Rey needs this, needs him, needs the contact and the softness and the energy, and when she feels his hand cradle her head close she cannot stop herself from reaching to rest her palm on his face, careful and soft. Her tentative fingers run over the line of his jaw, pausing just slightly when she feels the pebbled roughness that is his new scar under her fingertips. Oh…  
Their lips meet and Kylo Ren can think of nothing else, no one else, only Rey, only his girl. He feels her press against him and he feels her _need_ as his fingers curl against the back of her head and he needs her just as badly, needs this, needs all of it just as she does. He knows she can feel it, now there is no way to hide anything between them, and after the past few weeks there is nothing he wants less than a barrier between them again. She feels overwhelmed by all of this; the closeness, the warmth, the press of their bodies and the heat of his mouth on hers. She feels everything flowing between them, her want and his, their shared need and _hunger_. She wants this, he wants this, wants her, just as she wants him, it repeats and repeats between them as if hurriedly urging them to take heed and acknowledge it--despite everything, despite all of it...

And then Rey's hand is on his face.

His breath hitches at the touch and he nearly pulls back in surprise, but...oh...her fingers are so gentle and so soft and so careful on his skin. He wants to hold her hand there, feel her touching him this softly and tenderly as long as he can. How long since anyone has touched him this way? Rey's fingers are so light and so careful, she touches him as if he is delicate, as if she is afraid of hurting him. No one has touched him this way in years--not since his childhood, not since long before Kylo Ren. He wants to lean into her touch but does not want to disrupt the kiss, does not want to risk breaking their contact. Rey touches his face and she feels how still he goes, how awed he is, how much he wants her touch this way, and it makes her chest feel tight. Her fingers are gentle on his scar and her hand moves to take his cheek in her palm, soft and careful, wondering at how much he _likes_ this.

_Does it...does it hurt?_ She asks, tracing a very light, very gentle fingertip a little ways up the line of the angry, discolored skin, hardly bothering to break their kiss even still. Her voice is tentative, quiet between them. Her nose brushes against his and her lips part, and he parts his own with hers, breathing her in as her fingertip slides over his scar, his brand from their battle. His voice comes across the bond, nearly breathless and low, and his dark hair tickles at her fingertips when they drift near his ear.  
_Not anymore,_ he responds, and Rey arches against him and their mouths meet again, warm and hungry and curious and _needing_ \--and Rey feels better, warmer, the sickness in her belly gone entirely. She breathes and it is his breath and her own, and she feels her heart fluttering in her chest now for a very different reason. _Kylo Ren…_  
She feels a little shiver run through her, leans up into his body. She knows she should not want this, knows she should not want him--he has done terrible things and he should be her mortal enemy, but this is so strong and so much and so _good_ and she cannot make it stop. 

His mouth opens to hers and she feels his breath and takes her own and they breathe one another in, and Rey feels as if she's swallowed a _galaxy_ when their mouths meet again. Kylo holds her in close and craves her, every bit of her, everything she is, everything she can give, and finally, rushed and haphazard, he tears his hands away from her to practically rip his gloves off of his hands, tossing them aside without care and realizing just as he reaches to touch her again that he can _touch_ her; and suddenly he moves more slowly, more carefully, figuring out where to place his hands before letting them make contact with her body. She feels his hands leave her and release her opposite hand, and she takes his face, holding him to her, her fingers running into his hair. He is so soft-- _startlingly_ soft, she thinks, feeling dark hair slip through her fingers. Soft and smooth, and warm besides. She never would have imagined this before, not of him, and now...now, she holds him close, cradles his head in her hands. Kisses him as if it is the only way she can breathe.

Finally, slow and careful and reverent, Kylo Ren’s fingers slide into her hair, and up over the side of her neck to her jawline. She does not realize that he's taken his gloves off until she feels him hesitate and then at last, she feels warm hands on her face and in her hair. His hands feel so much larger on her smaller frame, but he doesn't mind--so much bigger on her jaw and cradling her head, and she feels the softest sigh slip out of her mouth when she feels his bare skin on hers.  
Rey's hair is not silk soft, not perfectly coiffed. It is thick, textured somehow, not totally smooth. Warm from the sun, shifting between his fingers and against his palm. Her skin is warmer still, soft to the touch around her chin and neck. _Rey…_ It is elation to finally, truly touch her. How can he withdraw now? There is no returning from this; just as he thought with the kiss he should never have stolen on D'Qar, this moment will not leave him again.  
His fingers take her chin and tilt her head up just slightly, and he runs the pad of his thumb along the underside of her lower lip, taking in the curves of her face to memorize them. He kisses her again, deep and hungry, wanting more and goaded on by the want he feels in her.

By all accounts she is his enemy--she is his target now, his quarry, he should be telling her to run, far away, far from him and far from the reach of the creature who sent him, but he tells himself they have this time, just this long, just this much, and his hand travels down from her hair to her back and then locks an arm around her waist, sweeping her in close to him. His arm prompts her to move up into him further so that she is flush against his torso, and with little effort he shifts and gets to his feet, lifting her with him. He remembers her weight, but this time she is awake, alert, moving with him and staying close.  
_Kylo…_ her own voice is somewhat hesitant, but not shy, not bothering to hide the pleasure he knows she's feeling. He kisses her again and Rey's fingers curl into his hair, urging him on, feeling the swell of desire in the both of them. She feels the same amount of...apprehension? Concern? She knows he is thinking of something to do with their opposing roles in the greater conflict surrounding both of them: the fact that this, all of this, _should not be--_ they should not be here, should not be together, should not feel this way; Rey should be back at the base, off with her friends, away with Luke, and yet...  
"Rey..." his voice is a growl against her mouth, low and husky, and his teeth brush her lips just slightly. She knows what he wants, he knows she wants the same. The Force is alive around them, a flurry of energy that rushes around the two of them and seems to rejoice in their contact. It _sings_ around them, magnifying, encouraging, guiding, a siren song that seduces the two of them into more, closer, _more_ , and his arm keeps Rey to his chest but his free hand roams over her her side and down to her hip. _**My** Rey…_

His voice sends a tremor through her and she can feel his teeth, his lips, brush hers. Her arms loop around his neck to keep him close despite the difference in their heights and she takes a shuddering breath as they move. He can feel her reply to all of this without so much as a hint of her voice yet, and it is _good._ Rey is all power and energy, holding her is like holding a star system in his arms; she is everything and more, the raw Force running rampant in her and drawing the same out of him. He feels her pull him closer, feels her fingers in his hair holding him to her, holding the kiss longer, and he has to stifle a groan against her lips. She feels like he does, understands what they are doing should not be, regardless of how it feels, and still...here they are. And Kylo Ren has no intention of letting her go. Not yet.

Rey gasps, the quietest, hushed little sound that expels in a breath against his mouth and makes his arm tighten around her. He lifts her off her feet finally, arms firmly around her waist and under her backside for support, holding her up so that now he can look up into her face when they part. And they _do_ part; she says that name aloud this time and he has to pause their kissing to breathe, ragged and desperate, his dark eyes meeting hers as he tries to catch his breath again.  
"Kylo..." How does she _do_ this? How is this possible, for anyone to endure something like this--to so completely and fervently desire every part of another creature this way, and to be desired back just the same, no less? His arm stays around her, and Rey feels his free hand roam over her back and she leans into him. The Force bursts with life around them, seems to electrify the air, every nerve in her body. She feels _alive_ , and bursting with power and energy--but she feels strangely driven on by the energy around them. It coaxes her, nudges her closer, draws the two of them together. It amplifies their emotions, makes the desire in her belly feel heavier and more intense. She wants more, she wants _him_ , she knows he wants her and she knows this must be...must be _good, right,_ what was _meant_ for them, even. How can this...how can this be bad, wrong? She feels more alive than she has in years, she feels like she can hear the Force singing to them, elated with their connection, their contact. Still, she knows that regardless of the push of the Force, these feelings are still all her own. The want, the hunger, the heat, is hers. The Force is only amplifying what is already there.

She feels a shift when she speaks that name--not _his_ name, but the name she knows she must use. Ben Solo is not here now, she knows; this man who holds her tightly and lifts her in his arms, gazes up at her with heat and hunger and adoration in his eyes, this is _Kylo Ren._ She is beginning to wonder just what all of the differences are between the two, but there is no time for that now. His breath is ragged and she uses his hair to tilt his head back, one hand moving to gently, almost reverently stroke the side of his face. He is...strangely lovely, she thinks. Nothing like the usually dirty and often exhausted Resistance members; they have a rakish sort of charm, something nice and attractive about them all the same--but Kylo Ren is different. Smooth edges, the contours of his face seem deceptively soft, he is a weapon, she knows this. His eyes burn into hers and she doesn't want to look away this time, studying everything in his gaze, everything on his face. The dark eyes, deepset, intense. A prominent nose; how it brushes hers and nudges her cheek when they are so close. A soft mouth--she bites at the inside of her own lips, thinking of how deliciously soft his lips are. Harsh kisses and a soft mouth, she finds that she likes the contrast, very much so. His hair is so soft too; _everything about him_ seems smooth and sleek and soft, but she feels his arms around her and the press of his body against her and she knows that is not all true.

_How can this be bad, wrong?_ He can hear it in her like she is saying it aloud. _I feel alive, alive…_ Kylo Ren feels a shudder run through him, nodding his agreement just slightly.  
_Alive, alive, alive…_ He echoes her, _This is what we make of it._ Good and bad...Light and Dark--he wonders, all too often, just what difference all of it makes. It seems like _everyone_ is capable of terrible things, the only difference is their justifications for themselves. _This is different,_ he tells himself, her, _This is only the two of us. We are the only two who matter._

Of all the creatures in the galaxy, in all of the universe, to want him it is _her_ , it is _Rey_. Kylo Ren stares up into her face and there is adoration in his eyes, but also a kind of recognition. He knows the look of hunger he can see there, mirroring his own. It goes beyond physical intimacy, it is consuming and burning and his arms tighten around her. He stares up into her eyes like he is looking into the sun, and Rey feels a shiver run through her body. Never, never, never in even her dreams did she imagine that feeling like this could be _real_ ; nevermind that he would feel the same, strange, amazing way towards her. Completely factoring out the idea that ‘he’ is _Kylo Ren_ \--of all the people, of all the beings in the galaxy, the one who wants her this way, the one she knows she wants back, is Kylo Ren. Which, really, is still an alien concept to her in so many ways, and even still, she feels him against her, feels him in her grasp, shifting real and firm and strong under her, and it _doesn't matter._

His Rey, his Rey, she is _his_ , she has been since the day they met and he cranes his neck some to growl against her lips, teeth teasing her skin as if he intends to bite into her, knowing there is a spark of some dark want in him to do just that all the same.  
"My Rey..." There is something almost feral in the timbre of his voice, something born from the hunger in him and given further life by the Force and all of the power rushing through the both of them, amplifying everything it touches. He wants to take her into himself and never let her leave, wants to keep her to himself and never be without her again. Never without her, never lonely for her, never leave her again. It is something dark, he knows, and is tamed just some by the sweet brightness in her. He growls against her mouth, low and vibrating against her skin, she feels his teeth on her lips and she bares hers in kind; something stirs in her and she feels his urge to _bite_ , and it becomes her own. She bites his lower lip, takes it between her teeth and worries it just so, just enough, somewhat surprised at her own actions. Her nose brushes the mottled skin of his scar and she wants to sink her teeth into him, wants to mark his skin again, mark him as her own. She feels something similar in him, something hungry and possessive, something that lurks behind his eyes and inside his mouth that wants to consume her and Rey's legs wrap around his hips and she curls her fingers tight into his hair. 

He responds, and she knows he's heard her internal debate. She hears one of his own then, and her teeth tease at his earlobe, her nose buried still in his soft, dark hair.  
_This is only the two of us. We are the only two who matter._  
But...she knows, regardless, that this isn't true. Between them, within their link, they are the only ones who matter. But there are others--there are the people they care about, the people who care about them. She knows, no matter what he might try to insist, that there is still love in him, there is still care, and she knows that if no one else, if there is no one else in his heart, there is still the General, _Leia_ , and Rey knows the dark could not steal that from him.

Right this moment, however, the only two people who matter are herself, and him; the consequences will come later.

The only thing that stops her from whatever action her body felt prepared to execute is the sudden rush of motion--Kylo Ren is moving them, carrying her out into the beating sun and through the sand, and Rey lets him, holds onto his shoulders and buries her face in the hair around his ear as he takes her wherever he intends to.  
He's stumbling out into the sand with her in a moment, holding her tight, and the walk through the sand is a blur. Before she knows it, distracted by her thoughts and the smell of _him_ Rey breathes in from his hair, they are in his shuttle. They nearly careen into the interior before he can think better of it, and in his rush he goes straight to the pilot's seat out of habit--realizes where he is a little too late, and Rey is deposited somewhat unceremoniously onto the control panel in the cockpit. His hands are only away from her for a moment, however; as soon as his arms are free he shifts her legs around him and then takes her face in his hands, draws her up into another starving kiss, rushing to feel that contact between them again, the energy and power generated from it, the symphony of the Force rising around them. Rey winces some at a knob jabbing into her ass and a switch into her thigh, shifting some off of the actual controls just before his hands are on her again, and she winds her fingers into his hair, taking fistfuls of it and pulling him to her, her legs wrapping around his hips. He grinds into her in response, their bodies press and rub through their clothes and it is _agony_. She can barely breathe, barely think of anything else, but _Maker_ , she wants him, wants whatever this is leading to, whatever he can give her, whatever she can take.  
"Kriff--Kylo--" nearly a grunt against his mouth, she feels tense, knows what she needs and not how to ask for it. _Kylo, please…_ There is an unspoken, unsent, 'I want...' and she does not know how to articulate what it is, trusts him to know for her. His body is so broad and she can feel it, both in his emotions and _physically_ , how much he wants her, and there is a strange, pleased, satisfaction in her at that.

Rey _responds_ \--knowingly replies to his movements and invitations and advances, gives her own, even. Their bodies press together and shift, and when she wraps her legs around him and buries her hands in his hair, when she gasps against his mouth, cursing and groaning that name, his name, her voice pleading in their link, his hands move to grip her hips almost too-rough. He growls, seizing her in a biting kiss, fingers pressing into her hips. His hands are quick and rough, and he growls at her--and Rey _shudders_. Kylo Ren's fingers grip her hips and Rey feels the pressure and the almost-too-uncomfortable pain and she wants more, and she feels no shame in it as he threatens to devour her in the next kiss. This is the familiar sting, this is teeth and hurt that she doesn't quite understand, _good_ hurt, the kind that aches and makes her crave more despite it all. His voice is low and too-reserved; he is waiting, lurking just so on the other side of completely giving in. Their hips rock together through their clothing and there is no more denying, no more pretending, even if the bond hadn’t broadcasted their desire between them loud and clear.  
_Tell me you want this,_ Rey, low and firm, nearly a warning. Permission, acknowledgement, an invitation. His fingers grip her hips and he ruts against her, slow and deliberate. _Tell me._

He can feel it, can feel the too-warm heat between her legs, the dizzying friction his movement is causing for the both of them, but to hear it is so much more satisfying.  
Her breath is shallow and she swallows a thick feeling in her mouth, struggling with this. What is it she wants? What is _this_? What, if she agrees, if she says the words, will this become? There is something primal and hungry straining in him as he holds her to him, something that shivers in anticipation of her response, bares white teeth and licks its lips, prowling behind an unseen barrier and waiting to be let free--something in him that calls to something else inside of her, and Rey feels it pressing insistently at her restraint on it. It is hungry, and raw, and strong--she feels a little shiver at the thought of removing all restraint here. She licks her lips and takes a small breath, teeth grazing the corner of his lips as she hovers just short of kissing him again. Ohh, she wants this. He knows, he knows, she knows that he does, and she is almost frustrated with the question, wants to protest it. _I feel how much you want me, Kylo Ren,_ she wants to snap, _Men can’t hide **that** well--just **do** something--_ but he is insistent and maybe...maybe she can find the words, maybe she can name this, what _this_ is, what it is she wants from him.  
_I want--_

Suddenly everything is slowed, save for a small red light flickering to life on the console near Rey's thigh. An alarm sounds off almost right under her and Rey feels her heart jolt up into her throat in surprise. For a split second everything is still...and then _erupts._

Just as abruptly as he lifted her up in the first place, Kylo drags her off of the console and Rey is nearly pushing off herself, their abrupt break in contact like a shock to her system. He's pushing her towards the entryway of the cockpit but Rey is on her feet and rushing out now herself, adrenaline racing through her veins and making her sprint back out over the sand as he snarls behind her. It is like tearing a bandage from a wound--his voice feeling as if it’s ripping out of his throat, low and guttural, angry and rushed.  
"Go, get out of here as fast as you can. Get to your ship, now!" He clenches his fists and grits his teeth, steeling himself from looking back at her. She has to leave, has to go. Not safe, of all the times, too close--he comes close to Force-pushing her out the door, but feels her going all the same. _Run, run back, go back. No time, just go, just go, not safe, can't be seen, **go**!!_ Damn--damn it all, of all the times, was it coincidence??

No need to tell her to hurry--Rey is running on her own, running and still processing everything, her mind a hurricane of thoughts, the eye of which is just telling her over and over 'Get to the base now'. What is this, what's just happened?? Her breathing is labored and erratic and she almost tumbles into her ship, careening into the pilot's seat and struggling with her wild eyes to get the controls up and running. Go, go, leave, get out of here now, get out, get offplanet, back to D'Qar now, _now_.

Inside Kylo Ren’s shuttle, there is a high metallic sound and within moments there is a message flickering to life on the console, a hologram quickly blinking into view. A cloaked and masked figure, familiar, unwelcome now.  
_"Master Kylo. The Supreme Leader has informed us of your task, and your departure. Have you made progress?"_ The voice is through a modulator in origin and then further mutated via the holonet. Kylo Ren manages to keep his composure for the moment.  
"I've only just started on all of this. The only 'progress' to speak of is that I'm not on the Finalizer anymore." He is clearly aggravated and the figure in the hologram bows its head some.  
_"Of course, Master. However...the Knights of Ren believe it would be more prudent if you were to have assistance in this...'assignment'."_ Kylo's eyes narrow dangerously.  
"Are you questioning my efficiency, Jahlo Ren?" The figure goes still in the hologram.  
_"I am not, Master."_  
"I will summon the Knights if I deem it necessary, not before."  
_"Of course, Master Kylo. We will...await your instruction, then."_  
The hologram flickers away in a fine mist of threading blue light, and Kylo Ren slams a fist into the console of his ship, roaring into the empty cockpit.

Rey is gone.

He is alone again.

The Knights of Ren are now alert of where he is.

He feels his arms, fists, shaking with rage, frustration, hopelessness. Snoke must sense something, Rey's presence here, his reaction to her presence, must have alerted the ancient creature. Kriff--he'd known this would end badly. His fist slams into the wall now, and he grips the headrest of the pilot's chair. He'd told himself not to give in with her, not to endanger her that way, and now...

_Rey,_ he rumbles in their bond, _Too dangerous, you have to stay away, have to stay far from here, far from me._ Stay on the Resistance base, stay on D'Qar, stay where you will be safe, stay where you have protection. He needs to figure something out, needs to find a way out of this, a way to protect her, a way to end all of this, but now he feels cornered and anxious and enraged, the Knights have gone so far as to contact him, even. _Not safe, not safe for you here. If they find you…_ His voice urges her on in their link and Rey nearly blocks it out, so swept away already by her own mild panic.

She's sloppy in her rush this time, the ship cruises over the dunes too-low until she gets her bearings better and then punches it skyward, out of the hot atmosphere and into the waiting void beyond. D'Qar, D'Qar, get back--she focuses and tries to catch her breath, waiting until she's out of the system and made the jump to hyperspace to settle back in her seat and try desperately to sort out her head.

What in all hell is going on?  
What had just happened, what had she just done--what had she just _almost_ done??  
The answer is almost alarmingly simple, and she tugs unceremoniously at the tie holding her hair out of her face to free it, the bun already more or less destroyed anyhow. Her hair still bears the work of his hands, and Rey's own fingers brush her scalp, making her tremble slightly at the memory of what _his_ had felt like. She bites her lip, swallowing, her hands shakily falling back to her lap. Kriff...what is she _doing_?  
She blinks a few times, runs a hand over her face, tries to breathe. Shuts her eyes, and the only thing she can think of is his heartbeat, soft, steady, so real in her chest. It's more calming than she cares to admit, but it helps.

She opens her eyes again and takes a deep breath, looking at her hands in her lap.

She knows exactly what she was doing, knows where things were leading, knows what she wanted from him. What she wanted to do with him, what she felt so desperate for. Her fingers curl inwards on her palms some. Maker...this was dangerous. This was dangerous beyond the strange alarm, whatever had Kylo Ren shoving her out of his ship and telling her to get away.

An unsteady hand rises to her mouth and she can still taste him on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a million thanks to my beta reader, who puts up with reading my rough drafts. maki you are the real #1 mvp!
> 
> okay so i am a terrible person, i know--i blame the knights of ren! (seriously though, these two just cannot catch a break, right?)  
> on the bright side, kylo's shuttle is safe from needing maintenance...?  
> a longer chapter this time! i hope this one wasn't too much; i was debating over shortening it some, but things are moving along nicely this way. our first run-in with the knights of ren! i can't wait to see them in canon, but in the meantime they'll be coming in again here soon enough.
> 
> as a side note, i'm going to be putting up a collection of side-stories soon that'll be a handful of one-shots centered around Kylo & Rey's training lessons c; i'll be taking requests for them on tumblr, so if anybody's got any scenarios they'd like to see these two shoved into, hit me up! [i'm always open to conversation, too! ;)](http://raindropwaltz.tumblr.com/ask)


	11. A Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anger.  
> Waning trust. Irritation. A proposition.

He is still reeling from the fact that the Knights of Ren have made contact with him already--no doubt they were prompted by Snoke, but all the same...Kylo Ren's brow knits and his jaw sets. He is still Master of the Knights of Ren. They still answer to him. If they are given any task, even from Snoke, he is certain he will hear of it before it is carried out.   
Rey gets offplanet as quickly as he could have hoped. He can sense her growing farther away as the seconds pass--when she makes the jump to lightspeed he feels it, and exhales loudly in the empty cockpit of his shuttle. Finally he slumps back in his seat, running a hand over his face. He had known this would end badly. This was too much, too much for him to deserve, too much for him to hope for; Rey belonged to him, and yet he could barely touch her, could hardly steal even a few moments to keep her to himself, could not even _keep her safe_ \--he rumbled the weary warning to her though the bond and willed her to go back to D'Qar, to stay there, to remain in the protection of the Resistance and its support.

In her ship, Kylo Ren’s voice jerks her out of her own thoughts and she gasps aloud.  
 _Rey,_ she hears an edge in his voice, _Too dangerous, you have to stay away, have to stay far from here, far from me._ She exhales and her brow knits. _Not safe, not safe for you here. If they find you…_  
But then he feels something shift between them, and Rey is snapping at him. His head snaps up some, brow furrowing. He feels irritation stirring in his gut. What--  
Rey very nearly cuts him off, sensing it even from all this way. She's furious again suddenly, her fists clenching at this. What is all of this? Is any of it really sincere? She feels such honesty from him, in him, even now--but can she truly believe it all? He is just as skilled with the Force as she is, if not more so; his master sends him to capture her and he lets her in just after he's found her old home... Her hands go to her face and she feels frustrated and angry and doesn't know what to do. Why does she want to trust him so much, why does she want...why does she want _him_ so much??  
 _You were sent to capture me. That's why you were there--that's why you were on Jakku--_ She feels anger rising up in her gut and the words tumble out before she can properly think. He’s listening, stunned at her accusations.  
 _No--_ But she continues, angry suddenly, the force of it whipping against him in their link like hurricane winds.  
 _Did you **lure** me there? Were there others coming--I must be a kriffing good kisser to change your mind, **Kylo Ren** \--_   
He's aghast for a moment at this, eyes wide under a knit brow. How--what--he feels the rage roiling up in him and threatening to spill out. His fists clench and he is on his feet again in an instant.

_NO!_ He roars at her, pressing at her consciousness insistently. _You don't understand what you're dealing with here--you don't know what you're **talking** about!_ His teeth grit and he drives a fist into the wall of the ship hard enough to dent it. His knuckles hurt and it only makes him angrier. Her teeth grit almost in time with his, and Rey balls her own fists now.  
 _I would--_ but he cuts her off again, and Rey screams in anger into the cockpit, feeling his aggravation mixing with her own and doing nothing but circulate rage and frustration between the two of them. Her fingers curl against her brow as she hears him arguing with her and she wants to throw something, hit something, but she's in a ship that isn't hers and restrains herself, refraining, for now, from blocking him out.  
 _I wasn't **sent** here, I came here on my own,_ he thunders, shoulders hunching some as he tries to keep himself contained in the real-world, _No one else was supposed to know I am here! You **idiot** \--you think I wanted that to happen? All I've been trying to do is **protect** you!_  
It all comes out just then before he can stop it, angry and frustrated and so, so desperate. She is all he wants--and she is the one thing that he cannot be near, that he _cannot_ have. He didn't anticipate the Knights getting involved this way, didn't imagine they would be interrupted as they were, and yet...if they _hadn't_ been interrupted...

He lets out a furious roar in his ship and slams his hand down on the console, activating the controls rather harshly. Now he is frustrated, has wasted time, still has no idea what to do, and if he doesn't act quickly he'll be cornered. At the very, absolute very, least Rey is far away by now. The one thing he can breathe somewhat easy about. They'd never be so foolish as to try and face the Resistance for her like that.

She does finally get angry enough to slam a fist into an empty part of the console, shaking with fury at his tone and the push of his energy against hers. Oh no, he's not getting in right now, not after all of that--she argues back, just as insistent and loud between them. Kylo feels Rey's anger and feels all of it just circulate between the two of them, growing like an electrical current, crackling and dangerous. He's furious at her for being so upset; he knows it's irrational, somewhere deep down, but she should just--just _listen_ to him! He knows more about this than she does--

_I **would** know what I'm dealing with if you would just **tell** me!_ She shouts in the bond, and he can't really argue with that, but he still bristles at the accusation as she continues, _Don't kriffing call me an idiot, **you're** the one that started all of this, if you hadn't shut me out like that with **no** explanation--_ she's sputtering even in nonverbal speech now, he can hear her stumbling over her words in her fury with him and for the briefest of moments it's almost endearing--though he has enough sense not to even form such a thought for now, _then you show up on **Jakku** of all pfassking places, you go into **my** home, and when I get there you tell **me** to leave!_  
The _nerve_ he has--and now he’s trying to say-- _And now you're telling me you're trying to **protect** me?! How?? How is this protecting me?!_ She's so frustrated and angry now that she comes out of lightspeed early, hopping off in the Ogem System and idling just offplanet for the time being. She's so distracted she knows she'd overshoot on her way to D'Qar, and at least this is out of the way enough for now. No one is tracking her but him, that she knows of.  
 _I don't need you to protect me! I thought we were supposed to be **learning** \--what's the point of all of this if not me learning to protect **myself** better?!_ Well...when she put it like that, it sounded a bit different. Rey doesn't understand this logic and she's angry, angry with him, angry with herself, _angry_! She runs, and runs, and she has been thinking that these lessons were about not having to run anymore--so where did that change?

_If you want to protect me then help me protect myself--and maybe tell me what it is I'm supposed to be protected **from**!_

He backs down just slightly, brow still knit, but he's trying to figure out how to explain things, what to do. He brings a hand to his forehead as she continues, getting frustrated all over again by how she's carrying on.  
 _Stop! Be quiet for a minute, will you?!_ He barks at her, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. _Just let me think--_ He's on his feet pacing in the small space, trying to think. Does he explain everything to her? Is she going to understand if he does? He barks at her and Rey is indignant, making an exasperated sort of noise out loud.  
 _Don't tell me to be quiet--_ she stiffens her shoulders in irritation, _You don't get to tell me what to do, you know!_ They might have a Force bond, and she might be frustratingly attracted to him, but that doesn't mean he can just boss her around! 

But...

She feels him trying to calm himself, and it extends to her some as well. She breathes deep and tries to swallow some of her anger, and finally sits back in the pilot's seat again.

He realizes she's stopped moving, and his head flicks up to look out the viewport, even though he knows he can't see her.  
 _Why did you stop--I told you, go back to the base! You'll be safe there, I can't--_ He grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, knowing she wants to understand.  
He tries to compose himself, to remain calm, to stop the recycle of rage between them so they can talk.  
 _...Let me get off this planet, and then...then we can... **talk**._ It's forced out, not something he's accustomed to saying to _anyone_.  
 _...Fine._ She feels hesitant to completely trust him right now, but she can tell that he is...he is _trying_ for her. She breathes, looks out the viewport in her own ship at the other starships passing her here and there, and cruises a little closer to Ogem to avoid being hit. She's never been to this planet, but it looks busy. A quick consult with her mapping system told her she was in the D'Alegoth Sector just outside of Thull's Shroud--there was nothing familiar to her that was directly nearby. 

He's fussing at the controls before she even consents, deciding that no matter what he probably needs to get off of Jakku before long. His brow knits as he looks at the comm device, a small growl of a breath rumbling in the back of his throat. If they didn't try to contact him he'd be more or less unseen. His ship has no tracker--he'd seen to that. But honing in on anyone to try and get a message to them meant finding their signal throughout the galaxy. Rey agrees to talk, thankfully, but not after chastising him first. He almost smiles to himself, he should have seen that coming.  
Rey settles back some in her seat and waits. She wonders what the truth of all of this is, what's driving him now, just _what_ the creature, Snoke, wants from her. That's the heart of all of this, she knows; Snoke is the one pulling the strings behind Kylo Ren. Just wait, wait for him to make contact. She could be patient enough for that.   
He gets the ship up and once he's broken the atmosphere he sends a communication of his own to the Knights of Ren. No one is to contact him until he gives specific orders; at this point if they disobeyed then he'll know he's being superseded.

Once he's heading out of the system, he reaches for Rey again.  
 _All right, I won't order you around. I'll...I'll explain._ He sounds somewhat resigned, running a hand over his face. This isn't how he'd envisioned things happening--but then again things haven't particularly been going according to his plans recently, he's noticed. _I would **prefer** if you'd go back to D'Qar first, though._ He sounded more insistent again here, somewhat aggravated still with her defiance on that. _Just go back to the Resistance, Rey, until I can...can sort things out._  
Rey waits. He takes a bit more time than she thinks he will, but then when he finally reaches again she sits up, taking a breath.  
He sounds hesitant, resigned even, and she frowns a little. He clearly didn't intend to tell her any of this, but she supposes that does help his case at least some with her. He's doing this despite not wanting to--not that she thinks forcing him to do something is a great accomplishment, but damn it, she wants the truth.

She makes a face at his urging to go back to D'Qar again.  
 _I'll go when I'm ready to go. But I..._ She thinks about this, knows they can visit, but her brow knits and her jaw sets. Kylo Ren senses her inner debate and frowns when Rey continues to be defiant about going back, but his brow shoots up at her next statement. _I want to talk in person. You're off Jakku--there must be somewhere to go that they won't track you._ She's already got her nav system up, scanning through planets nearby. The whole Shroud is more or less busy and she isn't sure that would be the best idea right now; too many people, too many risks. Somewhere in the Outer Rim, maybe, but...  
She bites the inside of her cheek some. She's not an interstellar traveler, she doesn't know the whole of the galaxy. She can read maps and find systems, but she's never been to them before.  
 _I want to talk face to face,_ She reiterates, _I know there has to be **somewhere** we can go._

He's so surprised by this that momentarily he's at a loss for words.  
"What--" _What?? In person--did I not **just** get done saying how bad an idea that is right now--_ He's stunned she'd suggest this, but...he can't deny that he wants to spend more time with her, all the same. He knows this is a terrible idea; they'll be caught again, this time it could be worse, but he feels how insistent she is and makes a frustrated noise, pulling his navigation system up.

He senses her thinking of the Outer Rim and grumbles to himself some, scanning over the nearby systems, trying to figure out at the same time just where _she_ is. Finally, he groans to himself, exhaling loudly and spitting it out despite his better judgement,  
 _Give me time to think. Let me come up with a place, so there’s no risk._  
Rey isn’t entirely happy with this response, but she nods to herself grudgingly.  
 _Fine. Two days at the most._ She realizes she can’t think of an ‘or else’ to add as a consequence--can she just go to him? Find him and demand to see him? Even she understands that would be dangerous right now. Still, she hears his voice come through, resigned and in agreement.  
 _Two days at the most. Just...go back to the base for now. It’s safe for you there, and whether you want to trust me or not you should still go._  
In her cockpit, Rey scowls almost petulantly. She wants to find somewhere else to go now just to spite him, but plugs in D’Qar’s coordinates on her nav anyways.  
 _...Fine._

The trip back to D’Qar is quiet. Rey is simmering in her own irritation, still trying to see if there’s anywhere else along the way she can stop for a night or two. Dagobah pings on her system, Utapau when she widens her range, but they’re far out of the way. She doesn’t plan to return to Dagobah anytime soon, and Utapau...she has no idea what’s on that planet, or if it’s ‘friendly’ or not. D’Qar looms closer, she doesn’t recognize any of the system names until just before she pulls out of lightspeed and the nav pings a system nearby on her console. ‘Naboo’. Rey blinks some, eyeing the screen for a moment. The name is familiar, why does she know that name…  
Still, with a sigh, she sets the jumper back to normal speed and preps for landing.

Kylo Ren drifts just off Jakku for a number of hours, not contemplating his position and the systems nearby as he said he would, but instead contemplating the situation he now found himself in. Rey is demanding a meeting in person, can he give her that? He _wants_ to give her that, but now he feels uncertain. The Knights of Ren know he was on Jakku, they can find his position if they so choose. If they can, then Snoke can find him through them. He will not risk Rey. He feels her drift further away and lets it go for now, trying to steady his breath and clear his head before finding a place for them to meet. Somewhere remote. Somewhere no one would think to ever find Kylo Ren. He heads out of the Jakku System to drift in open space.  
In the Outer Rim, he’s sure he’ll find _something_.

Rey’s return to D’Qar is standard enough. She lets one of the flight crews check out her quadjumper this time, agrees to head to the mess hall with Finn and Poe to talk about her trip.  
“I went back to Jakku,” She says with a little shrug. “I wanted to find something.” Poe is at a loss, but Finn looks flabbergasted.  
“You went back?! By yourself?!” She nods, giving him a little grin.  
“I _am_ a big kid, you know. Old enough to fly a ship, right?” Finn looks concerned, though.  
“Rey...is everything okay? You should have asked us to come!” He reaches across the table to put a hand on her arm lightly, and Rey doesn’t feel the familiar tug of jealousy in her from somewhere far away. “We’re your friends. We want to be there for you, you know?” Rey takes his hand, smiling, and it is genuine, sincere.  
“Thanks, Finn.” She squeezes his hand, and he finally manages a small smile back.  
“Did you find it? What you were after?” But Rey shakes her head.  
“No...but I think I’m okay without it.”

The sleep hours are fitful for Kylo Ren. All he can think of is Rey--her mouth, her hands, her warm skin and her hair, the elation he felt in her at their contact, the anger in her when she accused him of trying to capture her. And now, of facing her again, and telling her the truth. He manages to make himself drink a sleep supplement after a while, sleeps for a few short hours, and then pores over the systems nearby. It takes a few hours and a good deal of deliberation, but finally, he reaches out to her again. He feels tired, but something in him seems to jitter and tremble at the thought of seeing her again.

Rey is meditating when she feels it, the familiar touch of his energy. She pauses, letting her stones sink back to her bed and waiting for him to speak.  
When he does, his voice is hesitant, full of uncertainty, but a sort of tired determination to see this through.  
 _...Endor. We can meet on Endor. The forest moon, not the planet--plug it into your nav and it'll take you to the right place. It won't take long._ He can't believe he's suggesting this.

Kriff...of all places, _Endor_. He hasn't been there since he was a child; with good reason. It was remote and hardly a well-traveled area, though that would be in their favor now. The running joke for decades now was that 'Ewoks won the war,' but Kylo Ren knew better. Not that he'd heard those stupid war stories for years on end...Endor was where you wound up if you were lost. Or, in this case, trying to hide.  
There would be _somewhere_ on the forested planet they could sit and talk.

Rey blinks, hearing the name. By now, she's heard plenty of war stories herself--General Organa isn't the only member of the Resistance left from the war with the Empire. Endor...she's never imagined herself going, but now prompted with the chance she nods to herself in realtime.  
 _All right. Then...wait for me there._ She feels a strange thrill run through her at this--meeting him somewhere that's _planned_ this time. It's almost like they weren't literally just in one another's arms not a day ago.

Rey leaves with little interference. Poe has taken Finn flying, General Organa has instructed that Rey be able to use the same quadjumper for her own use until they can find her her own personal craft. Heading out of D’Qar’s atmosphere, Rey sets her nav on Endor's system and sits back, thinking about this. They'll sit and talk. She wants answers about this, she wants answers about the weeks of silence, she wants to understand what's going on. She wants him to understand that they can't both just...just... _do_ things now without thinking. Without the other being involved. It's almost a frightening thought, that they're connected like this now, that she's connected to someone else like this, but at the same time it's comforting as well, in the most bizarre way.

Endor. They’ll meet on Endor, and talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, maki, you are the best beta, oh my god.  
> also as always: thank you all for reading and sticking with me!
> 
> a SUPER short chapter this time--sort of a segue into the next leg of things.  
> Endor!  
> i thought, 'what's the one place i'd last think of in terms of planets?'  
> this was the answer. (listen i hated the ewoks as a kid okay they were terrifying and i hated them)
> 
> endor's going to be an interesting place. what a location for a rendezvous....


	12. A Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endor.  
> An explanation. A walk. Small triumphs.

When he enters the Endor system, there is a moment during which he looks at the moon, green and swirling with grey and deep blue, and he _remembers_. A pain in his chest, a twitch in his jaw.

_"This is where your uncle and I got kidnapped by those little hairy buggers. Better be careful, little guy, or they might run off with you too!"_  
_"Oh Han, don't scare him--ready to meet the Ewoks, Ben?" A gentle hand, a smile that lights up her face._  
_"They won't...they won't really take me away, will they mama?" Deep laughter from behind her. His mother's soft chuckle, her lips on his forehead._

_"I would never let anyone take you away, little fighter."_

Kylo Ren feels his gut churn and he bites out a growl, clenching his fingers around the controls. He touches down at the edge of one of the forests of the northern hemisphere, the treeline leading down to the rocky shore of a lake. The air smells just as he remembers, and he takes a shuddering breath, looking around. The familiar scent of the trees, the lakewater, something vaguely smoky from far away. The air is cool and fresh, a welcome change from the artificial atmosphere of spacecraft and the too-hot winds of Jakku.

The Endor System takes a little longer to get to than she anticipated, but when she pulls out of hyperspace Rey finds herself nearing the green, misty-looking moon, and she feels awed. Visiting new planets is still enchanting to her--this is no different. She reaches out into the Force for Kylo Ren and sets about heading for his signature, descending down through the moon's atmosphere and skirting over dense forests of tall trees, mountains jutting skyward in the distance. Rey's eyes positively glow looking over all of this--it's late afternoon here, the sun is starting to lower in the sky in this hemisphere and she can see the glitter of lakes and seas off in the distance. It's beautiful...she's still smiling when she spots his shuttle and touches down nearby.

Still smiling as she takes a few deep breaths to steady herself for this, still smiling, even if more softly, when she steps down the walkway and into the thick grass on the forest floor. Still smiling, if barely, when she finds herself face to face with Kylo Ren again. Rey arrives not long after him. He's standing near the lake now, hears her ship set down behind him, turns as she comes down the gangway. He can see a smile on her face--she's amazed by the planet already, but the smile fades some when she looks at him, and he sighs, knowing she is fully entitled to this reaction. Rey smells the air, and she is reminded somewhat of Takodana--but this is different, this smell is...different. Different trees, different flowers. Still good, she thinks, and breathes deep. Kylo Ren is silent, watching her, waiting. She closes the distance and comes to stand beside him, looking at the lake in front of them. It's still, quiet. She can hear birds and other animals calling in the distance, watches the slowly-fading sunlight glinting off of snowy mountains further away.

He waits until she is standing near him to turn back to the lake, folding his arms behind his back. He tells himself it is simply out of habit, but knows it is in effort not to touch her.  
"I haven't been here since I was a child. I think maybe nine or ten standard." His voice is quiet. His parents were fond of the planet, despite his father's aggrieved statements to the contrary.

Rey glances up when Kylo Ren speaks finally, taking this in. He knows this planet. She can sense it in him, feels the bond opening wide between them again. He has memories here, she senses thoughts of his mother, his father, and she wonders.

He tucks his arms and Rey folds her arms over her chest in much the same way, running her tongue over her lips some.  
"It's peaceful here." She's just as quiet. She likes this planet, but this is not why they are here. Rey's presence is familiar and welcome and her voice aloud in the air between them, while quiet, is more than enough to make this worth the risk. She folds her arms as well and there is a pause, and he knows what is coming. After a moment, she speaks up again.  
"You told me you would explain," She turns her head just slightly, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Tell me what's going on."

He sighs quietly, bowing his head a moment before nodding.  
"Snoke's orders were for me to bring you to him." He says it simply, as if it is not the world-shaking statement that it really is. "He sent me out to find you, I think...I think he senses something. My objective before was to bring you to him, on Starkiller, and I failed." He would rather not get into the details of what that had been like; Snoke never had taken kindly to failure. "Now, he's sent me out again. I didn't _have_ to go to Jakku. I made that choice myself." He found that somehow it was easier to tell her the truth.

She realizes once he starts talking that she isn't expecting this, isn't expecting him to tell her the truth. But she feels around, reaches out with the Force, and she finds he's doing just that--and he's sincere. Rey swallows, hands rubbing over the wrappings on her arms slowly. So he was sent out to find her...but why? To what end did this entity Snoke want her? Her brow knits some and she takes a breath.  
"Why...what does Snoke want with me? To turn me, like he did you?" She doesn't shy away from this, and instead turns her head to look him in the eyes. He can tell she's hesitant about believing him, but he knows she does anyway. It makes something in him feel...lighter, somehow. Pleased with the fact she believes him.

She brings up Snoke, and he feels himself go cold.  
"Snoke has given me more power than I could have ever imagined. He found the child I was and made him strong." It felt hollow, practiced. He questioned this more and more as the days passed, however. She turns to meet his eyes and he doesn't flinch from her gaze. "But Snoke will not have you." He says this with a low voice, heavy with the weight of the vow. "That is what I've been trying to protect you from." She knows by now, she knows what happened, even if she doesn't know the full extent or the details. Ben Solo was the boy, and Snoke twisted him into Kylo Ren somehow. She frowns at his explanation of Snoke, but she can feel that his heart isn't in it. Does he...does he really believe that? It's shrouded from her, but she feels as if she knows the answer. She bites her lips some, the intensity of his gaze making her shiver some.  
_‘But Snoke will not have you.’_ Rey's breath hitches some at this and her fingers press into her arms. So this is what it's been, this is what she's been sensing. _This_ is what he wants to protect her from. Her voice lowers some when their eyes meet, and she can't look away if she wanted to. She senses the answer somewhere, but she needs to hear it.  
"Why did you go to Jakku, Kylo Ren?"

He swallows some when she asks her question, her voice quiet. Her eyes tell him she knows, but he knows she wants to hear it out loud. He obliges.  
"I went to Jakku to find _you_. To know more about you." The things she wouldn't tell him, the things he couldn't ascertain from just her memories and her dreams. She shuts her eyes for a moment, but her gaze is drawn back in when he speaks again. Still, it doesn't make sense, he has to know that!  
"Why didn't you just _ask_ me--why didn't you tell me you were going, even?" Her voice is barely over a whisper, a little strained and confused. "You could have _asked_ me. If you hadn't shut me out like that, if you had just....if you had just _talked_ to me..." She hunches in on herself some, still not past this. It hurt her, more than she imagined it would--he pushed her away, shut her out, wouldn't let her in even when she was practically desperate for it. He apologized before, but she wants an explanation. " _Why?_ Why did you shut me out like that?"

He senses her turmoil before she speaks any of it and steels himself some. He shuts his eyes, feeling guilt wash over him all over again. He knows--he knows he made a mistake, he knows that Rey has every reason to resent him for it. All the same, he wants to mend this.

He turns to face her, still refraining from reaching to touch her.

"I'm sorry, Rey. I shouldn't have done it, I should have let you back in, I shouldn't have left you alone like that, not then..." He shakes his head, his brow knitting some. "Not ever." She's been abandoned enough in her life, he refuses to do the same to her ever again. "Things were dangerous, and I...I was..." He takes a deep breath, running his tongue over his teeth, trying to make himself say the words. "I was _afraid_." The words are barely audible. She can sense he is remorseful over what he did, though, and it is reassuring. He understands why she is upset, and that makes all the difference. She bites the inside of her lips and swallows some, looking up at him finally when he responds. There is fear in his voice, on his face, before he even speaks the words. Rey can feel it coming from him, she feels the apprehension, the fear of even admitting it, and before she can stop herself she's reaching a hesitant, hovering hand out to stop just short of his arm when she realizes what she's doing. Fear was weakness, Kylo Ren was not afraid. But that night, Rey had made him someone else, Rey had brought _Ben Solo_ to the surface again, and Ben Solo was afraid. Afraid for himself, and afraid for her.

"If Snoke were to sense...if he were to even think he sensed you through me...Rey I won't let him have you. I won't let him ever touch you, _never_." Rey was his--she would never suffer through the things he had, through the things Snoke could possibly have in mind for her. "I will teach you everything I can, I promise you, but in the meantime we can't _risk_ like that, not now, not yet. You're stronger than you even understand, but until you can use all of that strength, you're not safe. If Snoke ever tried to truly take you himself, I..." He breathes deep through his nose, jaw tightening, fingers curling into fists. "I couldn't stop him alone."

He is still holding back from touching her--Rey feels both grateful for it and somewhat disappointed, recalling the crackling energy rushing over her skin when they touched, the strange comfort in it. Likewise, however, she cannot bring herself to touch him either.

Her brow knits at his further explanation. He is adamant about keeping her from this creature, keeping him from her, and for the moment, Rey can excuse how possessive he feels of her. Snoke is a horrid, awful presence--even now she can recall the deep, dark, cold feeling she'd felt before with him, and Rey leans her head some to look up into his face. He is trying to still himself when Rey leans to face him better. He blinks down at her slowly, watching the light play in her strange, wonderful eyes. She gazes up at him intently, and her voice draws a shiver through him.

" _Teach me_ ," She says insistently. She insists, commands. As if he would deny her--she looks into his eyes and there is nothing else in the universe but her, and Kylo Ren knows this girl will be the end of him. "Teach me what you're talking about, let me help you." She does, too. She wants to help him--she knows he cannot, will not, accept the suggestion to come home. But this is something she can do, something she can accomplish with him.  
"Together, we're...I don't _know_ ," she shakes her head, her voice incredulous, "We're something _amazing_. You said it before, you told me..." She recalls the words, and slowly, she reaches to take his hand in hers. She thinks that what they are together is _amazing_ \--the word on her tongue makes his skin prickle--but then she takes his hand, and everything around them is still, and silent. He does not move, lets her remain in control here, not wanting to upset her again. "You said, 'you should fear nothing'. Do you remember? 'We are stronger than the things we fear'." Her voice lowers, and she feels her fingers slide to link with his. "You with me."

She repeats his words back to him from before.  
It seemed such a foolish thing to say at the time, too much, too _dramatic_ , but hearing Rey call it back to mind he wonders if it helped her more than he thought. Hearing it from her is certainly more heartening than he might admit; but Rey says this to him, and he believes it. His fingers curl around hers to link with them, and he takes a breath, exhaling quietly and managing a nod.

"You with me, Rey."

Everything else just seems to fall away when they touch--it's the strangest feeling, like they're the only two creatures in existence. It's intoxicating; Rey can tell she's already addicted to this weird feeling, but then...it could be worse, she reasons. His fingers curl around hers, and Rey nods, holding back a smile when he responds, when she can feel that her words have helped.  
He can feel that she's smiling, at least, to herself. She's pleased with this--it makes him feel...lighter, somehow. But then her expression hardens some, and he takes a slow, deep breath, bracing himself before he realizes it.  
"That means you can't keep hiding things from me, you understand that right?" She gives him a severe look. "We can't shut each other out, we can't hide things. If we're going to do this together, we have to...to _trust_ each other." She surprises him.  
He blinks a few times, slowly, digesting this. Her hand is still in his, and she is still standing there, waiting for him to react, to answer. She swallows, the smile easier to keep in for the moment. Her eyes are intense, boring into his, her energy tensed and probing, waiting for a response, a reaction, no matter how minimal.

"Can I trust you, Kylo Ren?"

The moment she speaks, he feels something in him stir, react--but he makes no effort to contain it, or to hide it. He doesn't hesitate.

"You're probably the only creature in the galaxy who can."

Rey feels something like elation when he responds.  
Her face lights up, and she smiles--really smiles, enough that she shows teeth and crinkles around her nose and the corners of her eyes. She knows, she knows that he is sincere, she knows that he means this. She wants to believe that he intends to make good on this, she wants to believe that this is all him trying to make things right.  
She raises their linked hands up between them and nods.  
"We're in this together. You, and me." She squeezes his hand gently, her eyes firm. "We can make things right."  
She knows that he understands her meaning. _I'm going to help you,_ she thinks, _You can't face him alone, but you aren't alone anymore._

Kylo Ren feels something that he cannot recognize in that moment. Something light, but heavy--something that fills his lungs and makes him feel stronger, like he can face the oncoming days. Rey is delighted, Rey is smiling, and she is so radiant that gazing at her face is like looking into the sun.  
He sees her smile, and knows he will do anything to make her smile like this again.

In response, his mouth quirks up some.  
"We have a long way to go before all of that." Old habits die hard, and Kylo Ren is not a man accustomed to smiling, accustomed to this brand of _pleasantry_. "But right now, I think we have a few more hours before things turn too risky." He gives her something that he's hoping is a grin, though it's a bit more lopsided than he probably intends. _You said you wanted to talk, didn't you?_

Rey is...more than a little surprised at the suggestion. He seems to be _smiling_ , though, which is relatively new; she squints some as the lake reflects sunlight into her face and tilts her head some, looking at him curiously. She likes this expression on his face, the awkward kind-of smile that he's giving her. He likes her smiling too, she can sense it through the bond and it would be a lie to say that it didn't make her smile widen just that little bit extra.  
"I think you should explain to me what you mean by that." She nods, giving him an open-handed gesture, "I want to talk, but I don't really get what's going on on _your_ side of things." She gives him a meaningful look, raising a hand to her brow to shield her eyes some,  
_Which is really saying something, y'know, since I can pretty much sense everything going on in you._

She squints in the light, and Kylo Ren can't pull his eyes away from her. Her nose scrunches up and her mouth makes a sort of rumpled line, and he thinks her freckles look like copper on a field of gold. She smiles, though, and everything is fine.  
He snorts at her remark through the bond, tapping the back of her hand with his thumb.  
"All right. Let's...Let's walk." He feels restless, thinking about this. He guides her with him, taking the both of them to the lakeside and releasing her hand as they walk over the smooth stones on the shore. Rey follows, enjoying the smell of the open air, the lake, the trees around them. She can sense the need in him to move, the restlessness verging on anxiety, and she moves with him, understanding.

After a minute, he takes a short breath. "I would say the First Order wants you, but it's Snoke. The rest of them...I don't think they care all that much. You're just part of the Resistance to them. Snoke is the one who sent me to find you," he knows that Rey knows who Snoke is by now, "But what he wants with you..." he feels a tremor run through himself and shakes his head. "I don't know. But I know it isn't good, and I..." He rakes a hand through his hair, anxiety starting to take over. Can Snoke hear him, even now? This will warrant punishment, for him and for Rey, if that creature gets his hands on her. He can't let that happen, but he wants to explain to her...His breathing feels labored and he doesn't like this sudden feeling of heavy panic. It's frustrating; his hands ball into fists and his brow furrows. He is _going_ to explain to her, he is _going_ to tell her--he is in control, not Snoke, not _now_!  
"I won't let him do whatever it is he's planning. But you have to--you have to _listen_ to me when I tell you some things, at least."  
_Please Rey, please understand, there are things too much to say aloud, I know that you understand me…_

She nods as he speaks, knowing what he means, knowing Snoke by _presence_ if nothing else. She does not like that he's been sent to retrieve her, but likewise she understands it. She knows that she is an anomaly, she knows that there are those who want her, to use her. She glances up at Kylo Ren as they walk, sensing the turmoil in him, the fear, the almost _panic_ , watches him rake through his hair, and Rey takes his hand without a word, without a pause. She slides their hands together and keeps walking, does not make any other motion to suggest she wants to read further into this gesture. The Force says enough, circulating between them and carrying her calm to him. _ _  
_I do, but I don't understand why. Why won't you let me use that name?__ _

"Snoke isn't here. And I'm not about to let anybody take me prisoner again, you know. You got lucky, that time." She gives him a cheeky little lopsided grin now. She doesn't necessarily think it best to lighten the mood, but she doesn't like the anxiety that's passing between them like this.  
Kylo Ren blinks a few times in surprise when Rey takes his hand. He hadn't been expecting this, but she says nothing and doesn't look up, so he stays quiet in return. She is trying to calm him--it is working, but only some; still, he appreciates it. He almost smiles, _almost_ smiles at her quip. His lips tug up just slightly, but it is halfhearted at best. He knows she's concerned about this, and the use of his name is bothering her, but this is not something he can compromise on.  
_I left that name behind when I became Kylo Ren. Using it has no purpose anymore._ This is straightforward, firm. _Snoke has ensured that no one in the First Order uses that name ever again._ Ben Solo is a reminder of his past, a reminder of his attachments and his weaknesses. There is no room for such a thing now.  
"You'll be lucky if he just wants you as a prisoner." He wants to withdraw his hand now but cannot bring himself to, his eyes hard on the lake shore ahead of them. It's an austere sort of tone in his voice, but he knows better. "Snoke doesn't share all of his intentions with me, but I know there is more at work behind this, behind him trying to get his hands on you. The Dark Side corrupts everything; once you start down that path..." He feels cold, thinking about this. "...It's too easy to just keep going." He doesn't know if there is a way back, isn't sure that he wants there to be. Skywalker always told him that his grandfather came back to the Light in the end, just before his death--but that seems too convenient, too easy. The darkness is enveloping, deep and quiet. It shields and mutes, makes everything seem simple and good.

Nothing is so easy or so simple.

Rey's smile fades at his responses. He will not compromise--she senses it, but it still troubles her. Her brow knits and she looks up at him now in confusion, even if she can tell what the reasoning behind such a strange mandate would be. Snoke is a disgusting creature--she cannot fathom how this man has survived for so long under such a presence.

She frowns, however, looking back ahead of them again.  
"I'm sure I could imagine a few possibilities if I tried. But I can't say I particularly want to." Her tone is clipped, her lips twist up some at the thought. She feels cold in him--it nips at their palms where their hands meet, and her brow twitches some at the sudden, unwelcome feeling. Her fingers shift slightly and she tries to quell it, shaking her head. "You can't just...believe that. What about--what about your...grandfather?" Her tone is significantly softer over the last word, "Luke told me. He told me about his death, about how he returned to the Light in the end. Everyone doubted, but Luke believed there was still good in him--" she cuts herself off, worrying at her lower lip some, not realizing she's squeezing his hand now, almost too-tight. He can't say he blames her for disliking this particular topic--her hand shifts against his but it does little to help. Rey brings up his grandfather, however, and he goes silent. "There's...there's _always_ hope, isn't there? I just...I can't believe that. I can't believe that there's no hope. I can't believe that you're just 'too far'." Her hand is tight around his and he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She is so...perhaps not certain, but _determined_. She wants to believe this of him, she wants to believe there is still Light in him, still good in him, but… She stops them, turning to look up at him, meet his gaze, and there is a demanding look in her eyes, an almost desperate look. "You've been trying to protect me. You came to me, you're...you're _helping_ me. I can't believe you'd do all of this if you were just _too far gone_." He gazes down at her quietly still unsure what to tell her. Her eyes are so intent, begging him for answers, but he is not sure he has the answers she wants.

There is a pregnant silence between them for a long moment. He is not sure what to say--he wants to console her, wants...he takes a deep breath through his nose. He wants, somewhere deep in himself, to believe her. But there has been too much, it has been too long. His robes are black and stained in red, and there is nothing that can wash it all away.  
He reaches a slow, light hand to her face, watches all of the blood on his hands smear over her cheek when he touches her. Not there, he tells himself, but it is, all the same.

Rey feels his touch and she sees red--so much red, so much for so long, it covers and stains, so much, too much, all over his clothes, all over his hands...  
"I'd like to believe that you're right. I don't know what happened to my grandfather. I don't know what there was in him, what changed in the end. I don't understand it. I am still the same person I've been, but you..." He manages something like a chuckle. "...You've managed to complicate things."  
His hand brushes her face, and she senses it for a moment, the blood he imagines on his hands, can feel the ghost of it smear over her face, but she doesn't flinch, doesn't pull away.  
"I think that you know your grandfather's path wasn't the right one. I think that I was right--I think you _are_ afraid you'll never be as strong as him--" she grips his opposite hand, her brow knitting slightly as she stares up at him. Her voice is almost ferocious, determined and insistent. "--Strong enough to do the right thing. But you can be, and you know you can!" She reaches up and takes his other hand, keeping it to her cheek. Rey doesn't so much as bat an eye at any of this, and momentarily Kylo Ren is startled. "You think there's too much blood on your hands, but how much blood was on his, in the end? Your uncle still believed there was good in him, all that time! Just like now, your mother still believes there is light in you!" Her voice cracks some at the mention of Leia, and her eyes plead with him to listen. "There _is_ still light in you, Ben Solo. I know it, I've felt it! Trust me--let me help you." She squeezes both of his hands tightly, "We can help each other. You with me, me with you."  
She rebukes him, and _he_ is the one that flinches now; his fingers twitch against her face and there is a flicker of memory in his eyes at her words.

_"--that you will never be as strong as **Darth Vader**!" _

She knows he's remembering what she said before, months ago, back in a cold metal room on a cold metal ship--he doesn't like it, either, but she holds tight to his hands. She wants him to hear her, to listen, to believe her. His lip curls for a moment and he nearly sneers at her, just at the sheer feeling of that reminder, but she continues and will not let him go, taking his hand and holding it to her skin. The right thing--what _is_ the right thing? What is the right thing to do here, what is the right thing that is going to repair everything he's done till now? He looks away and makes a disparaging sound under his breath when she mentions his uncle--but she mentions his mother, and he goes still. Mother...what she must think of him now. He cannot fathom what she feels about him--about her _son_ ; he feels distant from that person, now. Rey calls him _Ben Solo_ and it feels like she's hit him.

She wants so much to 'help him' but he doesn't know what that means, what that will entail, if that can even be done in the first place. Her fingers grip his hands and he turns back to her now, his eyes boring into hers.  
"What if there isn't a way to help? What will you do then, Rey?" He questions her, low and almost warning. "Ben Solo is gone, and he must remain _gone_."  
Still, he denies, hesitates, tries to discourage her. She won't let go, though, and when he stares hard into her eyes she doesn't back away.  
"Ben Solo is _alive_." He can deny it all he wants, but she knows the truth. "You can hide him away all you want, but _I know you_." Her voice never wavers, "Maybe we're both still learning about each other, but some things I know already. And if you're going to teach me, then I'm going to try and help you." Her expression softens some, just some, and a little smile quirks up at the corner of her lips. "And you can't stop me."

Honestly it's a cheeky response, since he could just call all of it off--but she's more or less preemptively calling his bluff. Daring him to even suggest it, to try to fool her; she already knows he can't.  
He wants to argue with her, he wants to snap at her, but the thought of walling off the bond again like that sends a chill up his spine. Kylo Ren takes a deep breath in through his nose and runs his tongue over his teeth behind his lips, trying to will the irritation away.

"You're annoyingly persistent," is all he manages to get out.  
That grin of hers is the worst thing he thinks he's ever seen.

Rey just looks smug, finally letting go of his hands and turning back to the same path they were heading along.  
"One of my talents, I think." She starts walking again, not bothering to ask if he plans to follow. This is...new. She and Finn take walks from time to time, sometimes with Poe even--she talks some with them, laughs, smiles...but this is different. She's wondering how, wonders if maybe it's because she knows what his mouth feels like on hers, how his hair feels in her hands--that could be it, she thinks, pursing her lips some. Complicated...this is complicated.  
Kylo Ren almost wants to laugh--if she only knew. He thinks of her tiny 'home' on Jakku--thinks of the other scavengers there, the way he saw them trying to get even enough food and water to survive, however, and he's quiet. Things were harsh, difficult...but simple, in a way he could understand, looking at Rey. All she'd had to do was survive; which had been hard enough by itself, but there was nothing more to understand. Rey is finding out that many things off Jakku are complicated. She stops suddenly, and it brings him out of his haze of thoughts.  
That thought knocks the air out of her and she stops mid-step.

__"__ I--" For a moment she feels stunned and still, and then her shoulders slump, and the feeling seems to slough off of her in her disappointment. "...I left my doll." The words are quiet, resigned. He exhales a quiet breath after a moment, watching her start to walk again. His palms feel cold now that he isn’t holding her hands, and his fingers curl in slightly at the empty feeling.

Oh. The doll.

He pauses before catching up to her.  
"Don't go back for it. Not yet." His voice is quiet. "I don't know if they'll head there, I don't want to risk that." Rey looks up at him after a moment, shaking her head, exhaling quietly.  
"It's...it's fine. I guess...I mean it's not _important_ now. I don't need it." The doll wouldn't help her now. Captain Raeh was a real person, someone the Resistance knew, someone she'd learned about after she joined them. And now...now she isn't alone. Now she has friends, real friends--Captain Raeh was her only companion for years, and now she has new companions. It will be all right. She hugs her torso some and starts to walk again slowly, managing a small smile. "I don't really have all the room for a doll that I'd like anyhow."

He watches her think about this and just manages a small nod. She clearly cares about the thing, but Rey is a creature of habit and a creature of few belongings, and leaving things behind is not a new experience for her. He keeps in step alongside her, opting to try and change the subject some.  
"Well, with that tiny room you have I can imagine." He tries to sound...teasing. He isn't sure it works, but the effort is still there. Rey blinks when he speaks up again, her brow knitting for a moment before she realizes what he's doing. She feels a small smile tugging at her lips, and tries to stay solemn.  
"Well, I don't really _need_ that much space--at least it's _warmer_ than that metal hole you have..." She can't help but let the smile come out even just a little now, glancing up at him. His brow shoots up at this.  
"'Metal hole'? My room is much, much larger than yours--I'd hardly call it a 'hole'." She snorts at his reply, grinning now.  
"You never even really spend time in there!" She catches herself laughing, however, and it fades some. There is a somewhat surprised look on her face, but she smiles through it. Laughing with him--laughing like this, walking like this. They're a long way from fighting, now.

He glances down at her out of the corner of his eyes when she laughs, notices her little smile, and his eyes dart back ahead of them. Rey laughs. She _laughs_ \--he's heard her in his dreams, when he's lurked around her while she's at the base, even heard her chuckling during their visits from time to time, but this is...she laughs for _him_ , and it makes something deep in his chest tighten. He wants to make her laugh like this again.

"Yours seems oddly remote. I don't hear much around it," he remarks, and idly lifts a stone from the lake shore into his hand with the Force, running a thumb over its smooth surface. It looks much like Rey's riverstones in her room, minus the markings. He wants to ask, wants to know about them, but says nothing. She nods some at his remark, watches him lift one of the stones up and watches him run his thumb over it, and she follows suit when she finds a nice, flat rock a few steps ahead. She holds it in her hand and turns it over a few times, smiling and nodding at him again.  
"I asked for that. It's just for when I'm sleeping." She slips the riverstone into the small pack on her hip and takes a breath, realizing she might explain her answer some. This is how people talk, isn't it? Keeping a conversation going? "Er...I'm used to it being...well, I guess not 'quiet', but...not so much 'people' noise," she explains, "There's plenty of noise in the Goazon at night, but it's not usually… _talking_."

He nods slowly, listening.  
"I take it your Resistance comrades aren't so skilled at being quiet during late hours." He says this dryly, raising an eyebrow. It makes sense, though, that she would want that quiet. He prefers it himself. Rey rolls her eyes some at his response, but she smiles still.  
"Well, they're mostly pilots and engineers...I mean I guess that's...normal, for people. To be up late and talk."  
"The Finalizer is quiet. The walls are thick and there are noise-cancelling emitters in living quarters." He thinks of how very different it is in her quarters. No artificial atmosphere, no white-noise beneath the sound between them. He wonders if she would like sleeping in a place like the Finalizer, if it would help. The thought is tantalizing, but dangerous. He pushes it away for now. She nods at his explanation.

"It's always quiet when I'm there. There are emitters in the meeting chambers, too--did you know that? The older ones were worth two portions each before I left..." He nods some, but looks at her curiously.  
"How did you know that?" He raises an eyebrow. 'Two portions each'...that was something he'd heard on Jakku. Oh... "You know their layout. Star Destroyers." He says this slowly, the full gravity of it settling in. No wonder she'd been able to elude them so easily on Starkiller Base--she was familiar with the technology they'd used. The layout wasn't all that different from a Destroyer, getting around must have been as easy as navigating her own AT-AT for Rey. "You scavenged them, didn't you."  
Rey nods, looking up at him for a moment before using the Force to make a few leaves blown towards her pause, and then circle around her hand briefly.  
"Yeah. The Graveyard was full of them--fallen Destroyers from the Battle of Jakku. I scavenged everything I could before the Teedos and the squatters took over some of them." They were her livelihood, her learning ground when she was growing up. She shrugs a little, "I had to, really. They had the most scroungeable material in them; a lot of them were already gutted by the time I got to them, too."

He watches her do this with the leaves, and when she lets them go he calls them to his palm, making them swirl around one another in a tiny cyclone before spinning off in all directions to disperse. She watches him do this, entranced, letting out a little hoot of laughter when they all fly off. It distracts him only for a moment from her explanation, and finally, quietly, he looks over at her.  
"...How long were you there?" He remembers the marks, remembers the wall, and his chest clenches. He feels rage in his core, and sorrow for this girl who was left alone for so long. "You know so much...even with your abilities, this had to have taken years..." He goes quiet, and her bright smile fades some.

"Four thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven days." She says this evenly, reciting it from memory. "...not counting the first few hundred or so. I didn't start counting for a while."

She takes a slow, quiet breath, looking down at her palms. She feels the anger spike in him, and her eyes are hard. She was there for a long, long time. She learned much, more than a child should have. She knows that. She thinks of the people who left her, and she struggles to remember, even now--but sometimes...sometimes, instead of longing, and sadness, all Rey feels is rage.  
"It took a while to memorize everything like I have by now. But I learned from doing everything...and if you know that sometimes if you make a mistake it could kill you, you learn fast."

His eyes widen for a moment, and his mouth goes dry. The math goes over his head some for the time being, but...four _ __thousand_ __ days....a standard year is…  
"Rey..." He feels the shift in her demeanor. She is right to be angry, she is right to be hurt--they _abandoned_ her--whoever left her there, whoever deserted her with that horrible creature Plutt...

He turns to look at her, his gaze hard and severe.  
"You shouldn't have grown up like that." They pause on their walk again, "You shouldn't have been abandoned like that." He knows what it is to be pushed away, to be abandoned. Rey didn't deserve this--she had been younger than he was, her childhood had been stolen from her. "You should have had a family, you should have been cared for. How could anyone leave a child like that..." He can feel the anger, the confusion in her--he knows how to use those things, knows how to draw power from them. He can show Rey how to do it, too; he reaches out to her through the bond, uses the Force and calls to the rage simmering under the surface of things. Rey is angry, she feels cold and furious, the old bitterness at being left behind filling her up again--but she feels Kylo Ren reaching for her, and she feels the rage in her reacting to that, feels...she feels the _darkness_ creeping through, slithering around her, stirring in the Force around her as if lying in wait for her to give in.

It feels _ __alluring_._ _

Her brow knits.  
"I waited. Every day, I looked around for familiar faces. I wore my hair the same. Wore the same clothing. I wanted them to remember me--if my people could just see me again, and know I was there..." All those days, all those years, waiting for someone who was never coming back for her. "I thought they would come back, it was a mistake that they left me there, it was just a _mistake_..."

Rey's sorrow and anger is palpably painful. Kylo Ren can feel it in his core, all of her rage and sadness and betrayal--there is __so much__ of it, and Rey…  
_Oh Rey…_  
Alone for so long, believing in people who would never return for _so long_ \--he wants to help her, wants to be with her, wants to make her strong, strong enough to overcome her pain.

The Force churns around her, and she wants to release her anger, wants to expel it, to break something, to throw something--another riverstone flies up into her open hand and with a furious cry she sends it flying into a boulder nearby, the smaller rock hitting the larger so hard it shatters. Kylo Ren’s fingers flex at his sides, watching her slam the riverstone into the boulder. She feels like she needs to catch her breath, angry and upset, but watching the rock break like that is somehow satisfying. Shards of rock fly everywhere, and Rey wants more. he can feel it, feels the Force react, levitating the little stones around her and destroying them. As if on cue, a handful of smaller stones rise into the air around her feet, and start to crumble, one by one, faster and faster until they seem to burst in mid-air, filling the air around her legs with dust. It feels good, good to let things out like this, but not enough, not enough, she wants something bigger, brings another, larger stone into her hand--she envisions the boulder shattering like the smaller rocks, and something around the huge stone seems to shudder. The moment it does, however, Rey goes still.  
She thinks of the huge rock cracking open, and remembers the ground opening up between she and Kylo Ren on the Starkiller. No--this isn't right, this isn't good, destruction like this...

Frightened and angry and frustrated, she throws the stone at the placid lake beside them. It flies across the surface until it makes contact, skips once, and then sinks into the murky water.  
Rey is a force of nature--Kylo watches in awe of her for a long moment before stepping closer when she throws the riverstone at the lake. It skips, and he feels things freeze for a moment. Rey is...distracted? Curious?  
It makes her insides settle some, gives her something else to focus on. She tries to calm her breathing, swallowing and flexing her fingers a little.  
"How...how did I...do that...?"

He pauses, looking from the disturbed surface of the water back to Rey. She's breathing hard, and she looks stunned.  
He blinks. All of that rage and sadness, all of the power generated by it...quelled by her fascination at something as small as _skipping a stone._  
"The...the stone?" He looks stunned. "You mean...how did you skip the stone?" Rey gulps in a breath of air and nods some, trying to clear her head again. Things seem...hazy, but now that she's focusing on something else it's like her vision is clearing, brightening.  
"I--skipping? 'Skipping' a stone? Is that what it's...what it's called?"  
She doesn't know what's just happened but it is significant, it is dark, she knows this feeling she was feeling but does not know why it felt so powerful, so easy to…  
Slowly, subtly, she glances over at Kylo Ren. She felt the magnetism of his energy on hers, felt him brushing at her through the Force. Was that...on purpose? Does he know what his influence did?

Kylo Ren can feel the Light blanketing Rey again, and he exhales a quiet breath he did not realize he was holding in. She is bathed in Light in the Force--her signature is brilliant and pulsing, like a small star. He does not think he can stand it, sometimes. She is so bright, so lovely, so warm...he feels like a black hole. Rey's Light, if brought too close, will be devoured and extinguished.

All the same, he cannot help but fall into orbit around her, bound to her strange gravitational pull, unable to leave.

He seems unaware of things as she's seeing them. Instead, he seems to just withdraw, taking another riverstone into his hand to demonstrate. He nods, finally,  
"It's...yeah. Skipping stones." He explains, running his free hand through his hair. "You throw them the right way and they just..." He flicks his wrist and tosses the stone across the lake--it skips twice and then disappears into the lake. He shrugs a bit, "They skip."  
She watches him flick the stone at the water, and when it skips over the surface, she gasps quietly. Almost instantly, Rey has another stone in her hand.  
"How--How did you make it do that? Is this a Force trick? Show me!" She's fascinated with this--the stones are far too heavy to just skim the water like that, how did he manage it? It seems like a good discipline activity, controlling the rock so it won't sink...

She looks so amazed by this--he feels her enchantment flickering between them in the bond and it feels so alien to him that there is a strange ache accompanying it, and he cannot put a finger on _why_. Rey gasps, and Kylo Ren feels himself jolt; she's so amazed by this, he can't even fathom why. His brow furrows slightly and he watches her, as if trying to figure things out just from looking at her, but he gets nothing. He raises an eyebrow at her, his expression softening only slightly.  
"...You really haven't..." he catches himself. Of course not. Jakku is a desert wasteland, she probably never saw a body of water until she left that horrid pit. He notes the riverstone in her hand and takes another few of them into his hands. Rey just watches him expectantly, rocking on the balls of her feet some. He seems so confused about her surprise about this, she watches him palm another few stones and move closer to her. "...It's just how you throw it. There's no Force involved." He stands closer to her side now, facing the lake. "Just hold your hand like this, and try to...to skim it. I don't really know how to explain." Not being able to fully explain is frustrating and he throws one in aggravation before remembering they have the bond to help them--and then he leans a bit closer to her and reaches out through their link, trying to show her through his own...eyes? Energy? Hands? He isn't sure just what it is, like passing a memory to her through the Force.

Rey feels him sort of...slide into her consciousness. It is a strange feeling, not unlike when they were visiting before, when he would show her images of places he had been and from texts he had read--but this is different. He seems to slip his hands into hers; not to hold them, but into her skin, as if he settles into her body and moves her limbs for her, but _his_ body is the one that moves. _ _  
_You see?_ __ He flicks another stone across the lake's surface, _ __Just like this. No Force, no tricks.__ _

Rey feels tingling all over her skin, and she tosses a stone after him--and it skips! Once, at least, it skims the water and then plops beneath the surface.  
Rey is scrambling for more rocks in an instant.  
"It did it once! Did you see that?" She gasps, hurriedly lining herself up to try again. "I didn't know you could make stones do this!" Rey's sheer _delight_ at managing even the smallest success here slams into him so hard it almost knocks the breath out of him. She is so...so… _happy_ , even at such a small thing as skipping a rock over water. Rey starts trying again with more stones and all Kylo Ren can do is watch her for a long moment, totally mesmerized by how enthusiastic she is.

Is this what it is to grow up with nothing? To be an adult...to be grown, now, and feel such overpowering joy over something this small? He can recall learning this as a child. He can remember being shown how to throw the stones, a larger hand on his wrist helping him manage it. Such a small thing...such a small, trivial thing, and yet for Rey it is a marvel even now that she's grown. He feels strangely humbled by watching her hoot and cheer when her stones skip over the surface of the lake, and realizes there are things he took for granted. Her little successes are enough to make Rey hoot and hop on her toes, laughing and trying to perfect her wrist-flicking. She's entirely unaware of Kylo Ren staring at her, or anything on his mind--this is marvelous, to her. Skimming stones over water; it's like magic without the Force, without anything magical involved.  
He almost snorts at himself when he catches his mind in this place. Kylo Ren, humbled by a scrappy girl from Jakku throwing stones.

They stand like that for a good while. It is...a strange situation Kylo Ren finds himself in, to be here with Rey like this. Rey tries to skip her stones more and more, and in the meantime they share idle chat about Jakku, about ships, about places to see. After enough time things feel...comfortable, and Kylo even guides her hand a time or two. She allows him to do this, and he's quietly surprised, though he says nothing and simply follows through the action before stepping back again, difficult though that is for him to manage. He wants to touch her, wants to be closer to her, to stay close, but now is the time for building more trust so that perhaps he _can_ manage these things in the future.

It seems a daunting task, if he thinks too hard about it. He doesn't like having to be this patient. Rey is his, their bond confirms that. He should be able to touch her when he wants.  
Still...he looks at her as she grins and laughs, listens to her tell him about other scavengers, fallen ships, the tough terrain of Jakku...and he is patient.

Rey listens when Kylo speaks, occasionally glancing over at him. He is surprisingly human sometimes--Rey knows it's foolish to think something like that, although...  
There are times when she still looks at him and sees the creature in the mask that captured her on Takodana, and then when they are together at times like this he is so… _human_ , and Rey feels…

She forces herself to look back at the water and skips another stone. It skims the water three times before plinking into the dark lake, and Rey grins broadly. This is easier to think about than her feelings.

The sun is beginning to sink behind the trees in the horizon. Endor's skies have turned violet and gold, and they still stand skimming stones.  
"...Ruumen said that Mon Cala has water on some parts of the planet that's so clear you can see to the bottom," she says offhandedly, watching the brackish water settle again. "She says there are reefs all over the planet that you can swim to, even non-aquatic creatures." Kylo Ren nods.  
"It does. I haven't been there in a very long time," he admits. "The wars took their toll, but..." He takes a breath, thinking back. "Years ago, it was still a peaceful place to visit. Very blue." He glances over at her after a moment, pausing.  
"Do you want to go there?"

Rey blinks at him when he says this, not having expected such a response--though hers is just as unanticipated.  
"We-- _could_ we go there?" She blurts this out abruptly, turning to face him.  
She realizes how this sounds a moment after and takes a breath, pausing herself. This is an unexpected situation, unprecedented, even, and she should take a minute to think about things. That's what Luke would tell her--think, don't just act rashly--but then again…  
Her enthusiasm is heartening, at least. He can feel that she wants to go places, she wants to see things, but she's holding herself back because...

...Because it's _ __him_ __ that's offering to take her.

He knows he shouldn't be bothered by this, but he can't help but bristle some all the same. She looks at the stone in her hand before throwing the last of them, and he frowns some at her response now. Rey gazes down at the smooth stone in her hand, the last one she's picked up, and turns it over in her palm a few times.  
"I'd like to visit there one day, yeah," she says finally, looking back up at Kylo Ren. "There's a lot of places I'd like to go," she turns, skims the last rock over the lake as the sky turns deep, dark blue, "Now that I can leave, anyway."

Dusk settles around them, and he takes a step towards her.  
"You could have left Jakku before, Rey." She's told him about waiting, about waiting for her people to come back for her. About realizing, finally, that they never would. She is too kind, still, too sweet. Even if the sand and the sun and the wind have hardened her skin, beneath it she is kind, in this way. "You can leave now, too. It won't be easy, and I can't be away long, but we could go anywhere." It's hasty, but he means it, even in this rushed moment. He can show her planets she's never heard of, places she's never dreamed of visiting. "We could see the Hutt cantinas on Tattooine. We could climb the cliffs on Utapau, see the crystal forests on Christophsis. We could swim to the reefs on Mon Cala." He can do all of this for her, if they are careful. He _wants_ to do all of this for her. "You and I. We can do anything, Rey, you know we can." Somehow he wants to believe this statement. If they were both stronger...if they were both stronger, if Rey knew more...  
Maybe it could be true.

She's caught off-guard by his response to her--for a moment Rey wants to argue, tell him he doesn't understand, she couldn't just _leave_ \--but she realizes that if she'd only known...if she'd been honest with herself, if she hadn't been such a fool, she could have left. How different would her life be now, if she'd left Jakku one of the times she'd been offered passage offplanet? How different might things be if she'd just left, one of the many, many times she'd wanted to?  
Rey meets Kylo Ren's eyes with her own, and she wants so, so much to believe in all of this.  
The sky dims further. Somewhere off in the distance, they can hear quiet drums, see the flickering lights of fires off in the mountains. Soon, she will have to leave.

"I want to go."

It is low and steady, her eyes never leave his.  
"I want to see everything.” There is the smell of smoke on the night wind. The clouds have given way to stars, and the looming gas planet beyond this moon. Kylo Ren would see all of this if his eyes weren't fixed to Rey's.  
With a slow, steady hand, he takes her hand in his, and gives a small nod of his head.

"Then I'll show you the galaxy."

There are night sounds echoing across the lake now, and Kylo Ren walks with Rey back to their two ships. He can point out constellations still, he learns, and names off three of the star formations he can spot to her. The night sky on Endor is beautiful, Rey thinks. The actual planet of the system is large and lovely among the stars, and beneath where the mountains and the trees are lit up...it is different on D'Qar. It was different on Jakku. Seeing the night sky like this is something she is glad she's able to do.

Kylo Ren keeps their hands together as they return to the ships, and Rey hardly even notices. It feels normal, touching like this, the bond flowing between them; she feels the strange new calm in him and it passes to her, and when they stop finally she realizes she's not ready to go back yet. The stars here seem so much more peaceful. __He__ feels much more peaceful. Rey's hand is warm in his own, and their bond is a quiet, soothing ebb and flow between them, like the waves of a calm ocean. They reach the ships, and he does not want to let her go.  
They stop, and he faces her for a moment, the shadows of the trees forming dark patterns on her face.  
"We have to wait, now. A few days, and then we can meet." He steps close, their heads are not that far apart in height. "I promise."

The shadows cast on his face by the trees around them are not foreboding. They only seem soft, now, and Rey nods some, watching the low light of the night sky play in his dark eyes. This is different, good different, welcome different. The darkness around them now isn't frightening, isn't unsettling, just quiet and calm and soft.  
"A few days," she agrees, "Maybe I'll even have my own ship by then." She takes a deep breath and finds that she is drifting closer to him all on her own now. _How strange,_ she thinks idly, _it's like orbit._

It's not long before they're _very_ close, and Rey's breathing has shallowed some, unsure how to proceed. She is close, so very close, and he wants very much to take her into his arms now while there is still even just a moment--but then Rey surprises him again.

"Kylo Ren," She says, staring up at his face and keeping her voice low, "I am going to kiss you."

She doesn't care how it sounds, she just wants to do this--just once, before they leave again. Always _he_ kisses _her_ \--she wonders what it is like to initiate things herself.  
Her hand slips out of his and she reaches up to slowly take his face in her hands, leaning up some on her feet and bringing his face to hers so that she can press her lips to his. She cradles his face, and Kylo Ren knows that he belongs to her. Her touch is the sweetest delight he has ever known, and he is absolutely, completely, maddeningly, at her mercy.

Rey kisses him, and everything else falls away.  
The Force comes to life around them. Kylo Ren's arms are around Rey's waist before he knows it, drawing her in against his chest. All over again, there is energy--energy and light and shadow and sensation, and Rey is satisfied, pleased with her decision.

_I like this,_ she determines, _I like this._  
_So do I,_ he murmurs back, holding her tightly.

He doesn't want to let her go, doesn't want to let her leave, but he knows they both have to separate, just for a little while. His fingers press into her back and he kisses her desperately, wanting to keep the sensation with him even after she is gone.  
Oh...she could do this for hours. She wonders, briefly, if that would be possible--his arms are tight around her and Rey can feel his warm skin under her hands and she thinks that maybe the rest of his skin is just as warm--

Rey catches herself and has to take a deep breath when they part finally. Kylo Ren keeps her in his arms and Rey breathes, feeling his hands at the small of her back. She feels that same hunger from Jakku, from the heat of the sun and their bodies pressed together, and Rey wants...she wants things she can't name, can't speak, things she knows she should not want. Not now.

When they do part, he keeps her in his embrace a moment longer, gazing down at her face in the starlight.  
"A few days." He hopes they will go quickly. _And we have the bond._  
She manages to nod when he speaks up again, breathless before they both have to depart.  
"Just a few days," she agrees, and when they let one another go, she cannot wait to be with him again. _Not alone anymore,_ she sends, and manages to slip out of his arms.

She wants to train, to learn what he knows, to learn who he is, to learn who _she_ is. She knows, however, that whoever she is, whoever she will be, is linked to Kylo Ren. She is determined that who _they_ will be is going to be something good.  
There is a voice in her head when she thinks this; a voice out of time, out of her dreams, her nightmares, her visions:

_"Perhaps you can succeed."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as ever: thank you maki, you are the best beta ever and i love u <3
> 
> holy crow this was a long chapter, thanks for hangin' in, fam @ v@; you guys are awesome.  
> if you're still with me even now and you've been waiting for some ~adult situations~, then i am excited to tell you that your patience is paying off--next week, the rating will change to explicit, and chapter 13 is going to see our first real nsfw scene.
> 
> and as always: you guys are all amazing for sticking with the story! thank you so much!


	13. An Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Attraction.  
> Desire. Recklessness. _Euphoria_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick PSA:  
> This chapter is going to be NSFW. There's smut in these here paragraphs, so if that's not your thing, then I apologize.

Rey isn’t sure how the days pass leading up to her next contact with him. Did they go by fast? Did they drag by? Likewise, for Kylo Ren, he can hardly measure just how the time passed.

A celebration for Finn running his first flight offplanet on his own. A few too many drinks and he kisses Poe right on the cheek in front of everyone! Enough of a scandal to make everyone hoot and cheer and then laugh when Jess makes a quip about it being ‘the worst miss she’s ever seen’. Poe, not to be outdone, assures her he never misses, and returns Finn’s kiss, this time hitting the mark, and the room lights up with noise and delight and Rey laughs, wonders what it might be like to do such a thing in a crowd of people.

A holo conference with the Knights of Ren. Static voices through modulators, orders to wait on contact from him before acting on his behalf or acting at _all_ , really. Jahlo Ren does not speak up, this time. Nilo Ren does, however. Asks if he is certain, asks if this is to remain off-record from Leader Snoke.  
“I am out on _orders_ from Leader Snoke,” he responds in a furious, rumbling growl that they are each all-too familiar with, “if any of you question my authority then I will be more than happy to hold a demonstration when I return. Is this clear?”  
Nilo Ren steps back, and says nothing further. The figures nod, bow heads in the holo before it flickers out.

They keep in contact, unobtrusively. She trains with Luke for hours, and he lurks in her consciousness, making pointed remarks when she begins to feel exhausted. He travels to one of the First Order outposts to have maintenance done on his ship, and she hovers in the back of his mind, correcting one of the mechanics with a wrinkled nose.

When the days have passed--fast or slow, they can scarcely keep track of just how many, but not _too_ many--Rey can feel the soft line between their two spaces relax, retract. It is early morning on D’Qar, so early the daylight is still gray and new, but Rey’s eyes are open in an instant.  
_Rey._ It comes quiet but clear, and Rey feels herself smiling, yawning a little in the dim quiet of her room.  
_I’m here._ Hearing her again, clear and direct, and Kylo Ren’s lips tug up into a half-smile.  
_Are you ready?_

Rey grins, already out of bed and tying her hair back.  
_I’ve been ready for days._

Their first meeting is decidedly simplistic all-around. An easy destination to find, a simple meeting. Rey arrives in a set of training clothes. Kylo Ren meets her in his usual dark affair, long hair tied back out of his face. Rey gives the little knot towards the top of his head a long look, appraising the general effect it has on his appearance, and gives him a cheeky grin when he raises an eyebrow at her stare.  
“Something wrong?”  
“I like your hair today.” He finds himself glancing upwards, as if to see his own hair, and then looks back at her, clearing his throat some.  
“It’s easier to manage this way. I’ve let it get too long, might need to cut it soon. And what does that mean, ‘today’?” But Rey can feel the little pleased flutter that comes through the bond anyway. She snorts, knocking her staff into his shoulder as she heads past him.  
“Come on, you can preen later!”

They are in a sea of tall grass--plains that stretch out in all directions, under one sun and a hazy-looking moon. Rey is delighted; she runs through the grass, watching the path she cuts disappear again behind her. Kylo Ren watches, snorting when she throws herself into the soft blanket of green and disappears for a moment before popping back up, laughing. He rolls his eyes at her, slowly making his way over to her now, notably less delighted.  
_You’d be excited too if all you ever had to roll around in was sand…_ He’s quiet, but Rey doesn’t sound bitter, just cajoling, if anything. He shakes his head, flicking his gaze up and back again.  
“You’re right, I guess. Now get up, stop rolling around in the dirt.”  
“I don’t think I’m even _touching_ the dirt!” He rolls his eyes again.  
“ _Rey_.”

They spar. It begins as simple instruction, but becomes...becomes _fun._ Blade meets blade, grass flies around them. Rey meets Kylo Ren’s spinning arcs with her own flair now, whirling her staff in elaborate loops to meet his blows. They move in a strange unison, less two combatants and more two dancers, met in an intricate routine, perfectly in sync with one another. Their movements flow together, they rove over the hilly plains and slice their path into the grass as they go.

Rey meets his swings, Rey matches his steps and finds herself grinning as they go. Their clothing rushes around them, she feels the sheen of sweat on her brow and smells the cut grass, and she feels a wild thrill run through her. Her own adrenaline, her own delight, and his--his joy, his excitement at this, his energy, _their_ energy. His movements become hers, and hers become his, and they move _as one_ , and it is _euphoric_. How they fit into one another, their energies mingling and intertwining, the Force melding their signatures together until Kylo and Rey both are beginning to lose focus on where one of them ends and the other begins. Was he the one to swing her staff, was she the one to thrust his blade?  
They no longer keep track.  
They no longer care.

Only when there is a flicker of something else--when their saber blades meet and they are suddenly close, close, so close, faces nearly touching, and it sparks between them like a bolt of lightning, electric and shocking, and they both leap back, staring and breathing hard atop one of the small knolls throughout the plains. Rey stares, suddenly out of breath but _warm_ , watching the breeze tousle the loose locks of his hair. The bond was wild and alive, and now it’s normalized again, stable and ‘tame’ between them once more. She takes deep breaths, tries to focus again on her own body, her own energy. When did this become so hard?

Kylo Ren’s chest heaves some, and he stares back at Rey, startled and trying to understand what’s just happened. Suddenly he feels _alone_ , standing apart from her in _his own body._ He takes deep breaths, tries to center, but Force...everything in his being calls out to hers, and he wants her, wants her, wants her to be part of him again, wants to feel her in his consciousness, in his bones--he feels a strange raging frustration that they are no longer intertwined that way, and suddenly he rushes her, blade swung down. This is no longer about striking her, this is about _taking_ her, bringing her back into himself, back to his energy, bringing her back to his call.

Rey is still breathing hard, trying to understand. What _was_ that? She flexes her fingers, curls her toes, and they are her own again. His arms are no longer her arms, his lungs are not hers, she does not hold his saber now, only her staff. What happened? What were they doing? Why do her limbs tingle and feel strangely hollow now?  
She jolts from her reverie just in time to realize he is rushing her like this, and her reflexes kick in--he gets within feet of her and she lashes out, pushing him back with the Force, not intending to hurt but not sure what this is, what she’s feeling, what she’s doing, what she suddenly wants here.

Rey pushes so suddenly that he responds just as reflexively--he reaches out in turn and pulls, grasping at her to try and bring her to him. The effect of this, in the end, is that both of them wind up tumbling down the small knoll they’ve been standing on, before finally coming to rest in the thick grass. Rey feels hardly in control of herself suddenly, pushes off of the ground and lunges at him, planting a hand firmly on his shoulder when she sees him trying to get up and pins him on the grass. Kylo Ren stares up at her in surprise, sprawled on the ground as he is, suddenly unsure what she’s doing. Their weapons have been cast aside for now, and Rey crouches over him, her hands on his shoulders, her knees on either side of his torso. She looks...uncertain, staring down at him, but he stares back, studying her face, the way her loose tendrils of hair fall around her cheeks and neck.  
She has no idea what she’s doing, but he is warm and firm and she can feel his heartbeat and she feels him creeping into her again--or is it her creeping into him? She isn’t sure anymore--and the boundaries between ‘she’ and ‘him’ begin to blur. They take a ragged breath in unison, eyes wide on two faces, hearts pounding in two chests to the same beat.

Kylo Ren moves first, though Rey senses the movement as the idea even forms in his mind.  
In an instant, he’s craned his neck up and crashed his mouth to Rey’s, quick in pulling her down to him, his broad hands on her biceps. Rey keeps herself aloft on her knees if just barely; she shifts against his midsection and when she feels him groan quietly against her lips she jolts slightly in surprise before repeating the movement, slowly, deliberately. His fingers curl around her arms and he practically glares up at her then, feeling particularly prone, splayed out under her like this.  
He doesn’t have to tell her ‘don’t tease.’ He doesn’t have to say anything--she knows, understands, he sees it written all over her smug, mischievous face. Rey knows what she’s doing, knows exactly what she’s doing when her thighs press into his sides slightly, and her backside slooowly shifts down towards his hips. Knows perfectly well what she’s doing when she presses her torso to his, her arms around his head in the grass. She takes a breath and he leans his face close to hers, restraining himself still (regardless of how difficult this is) and growling against her skin.  
“Don’t start this if you can’t finish it, Scavenger.” But Rey doesn’t so much as blush.  
“Are you worried you might finish too soon if I do start?”

That catches him off-guard. He blinks, staring at her in surprise for a moment before his hands leave her arms, and he kisses her again, hard. Rey keeps up, kisses back, weaves fingers into his hair, groans against his mouth when she feels his hands, firm and pressing kneading fingers  into her ass. This is not where she envisioned this afternoon going--not what she expected this outing to be like--but she doesn’t shy away from it now. Her hips grind down against his and she can feel him under her, hard and pressing against her through their clothing, and Rey feels it in the bond, knows he feels it too, the desire building between them. Kylo Ren thrusts up against her and Rey lets out a stream of curses into the bond, her teeth brushing his lips and her fingers tugging at his hair. She feels his want just as he feels hers, and there is no denying any of it anymore. He slides teasing fingers between her legs outside of her pants, and Rey gasps, jerking against him in surprise, moaning into the open air now as Kylo presses an open-mouthed kiss to her throat, his fingers rubbing insistently between her thighs.  
_Kriff--Kylo--_ But all this serves to do is goad him on further, until Rey slides a hand down between them and palms his straining cock through his pants.

He _hisses_ , bites her throat as his fingers press further into her through her clothes, feeling the fabric turn damp under his touch.  
Rey whimpers, her hips rock against his hand and her hand slides down his length as far as she can reach, and then back up again. Kylo growls against her skin and Rey can feel how much effort it is taking for him to stay this still--she can feel _everything_ somehow: his fingers outside her cunt, his body under hers, she feels her own hand on his cock, somehow--she can feel it like a phantom limb, and when she lets out a shuddering groan and dips her hips to rut against his, he grinds back against her and she knows he can feel the same things she is.

Her hand is fumbling for the fastenings of his pants within moments, and he shifts to kiss her on the mouth again as his fingers find their way to slide into her clothes, pushing the waistline of her trousers down until--he pauses, amused and teasing fingers down over the cleft of her ass.  
“No underwear? Almost like you were anticipating this…” Rey snaps her teeth at him impatiently.  
“I only wear them when I sleep--they’re just a hassle otherwise!” He snorts at this, but she kisses him again, open-mouthed and hungry, and he doesn’t care about the details anymore.  
Rey manages to just nearly free him from his pants when they both stop, freezing in place.

In the pouch around her waist, her comm device is sounding off. They both look stunned by this, staring down at the leather satchel for a moment before Rey withdraws her hands and shifts to try and get at the pouch, but he is irritated, trying to stop her.  
“You can’t just--just let it go?” Rey looks just as aggravated, red in the face now and huffing for breath.  
“No--I--it’s--” she’s flustered now, hurriedly trying to open the pack. He scowls, ears turning pink though he still withdraws his hands from her clothing.  
“It’s _who_ ?!” If it’s the Pilot or the Traitor, he’ll--  
“ _It's your **mother**! _ ” She practically screeches it in her bothered exasperation. He goes silent at that, suddenly feeling a bit less aroused.  
Rey rushes to try and settle her clothes again and scuttles back away from Kylo Ren over the grass, trying hard to look nonplussed to answer the beeps from her comm. She answers, and he starts setting his clothes to rights again as well.

General Organa’s voice comes over the comm a moment later, and Rey tries to effect an aura of calm surprise.  
“Rey? Is everything all right, you took a little long--”  
“Everything’s fine, General--I ah, I was meditating, so…” Even without seeing her face, Kylo Ren can tell she isn’t buying that.  
“...Of course. Rey, I’m sorry to interrupt your personal time, but I need you back here. We need your knowledge right now, I need you back here as soon as possible.” Rey can feel the anger rolling off of Kylo in waves, but she takes a breath, nodding at the General.  
“Of--of course, I’ll come back right now.”

It is a silent trip back to their ships. Rey has no idea how people deal with this sort of awkwardness; how does anyone carry on a physical relationship and then have to see their partner again like this? All the time? She supposes they didn’t actually _do_ anything here, but…  
Rey glances sidelong at Kylo Ren walking next to her and she bites her lip. They might not have done anything, but _stars_ , she _wanted_ to. The damp fabric of her pants is an uncomfortable reminder of just how _much_ she wanted to.  
He is fuming in his own head for the time being; his erection might be gone now (his _mother_ \--was the Force doing this on _purpose_ ?) but the fact that they’ve been interrupted not once but _twice_ now is infuriating, regardless of the perpetrator either time.  
_I had no idea you were an on-call consultant for them now…_ He growls through the bond, aggravated and now incredibly unsatisfied. Rey scowls.  
_I do what I can to help--isn’t that what you do for_ **_your_ ** _people??_ She snaps back, shooting a glare at him. _Stop sulking, you think I’m not annoyed too?_  
_I might be wondering, yes._ Rey stops when they reach the two crafts settled on the grass, and gives him an irritated frown.  
“Don’t be such a--a--”  
“A _what_ , Rey?”  
“A _brat_ !” She gives him an incredulous look, annoyed as she is. “Stop being such a _brat_ , Kylo!” He looks stunned.  
“A _br_ \--” Shock turns to anger and he’s leaning over her in an effort to be intimidating, but Rey doesn’t budge.  
“We said we could--could meet whenever we were able--stop sulking just because you couldn’t _fuck_ me!”  
Well, he wasn’t expecting her to say that. He stares at her for a moment and Rey stares right back, her lips in a thin line. He opens his mouth and she lets out an exasperated sigh, turning for her ship.  
“I have to go, I can’t--” he grabs her arm, and she rounds on him when he does, but he doesn’t look so petulant anymore. He just stares down at her with those dark eyes, and Rey feels a frustratingly familiar flutter in her belly.  
“I’m not irritated just because we didn’t fuck --I wanted to see you. I want to see you again.” Rey swallows, licking her lips.  
“I want to see you again too.” He releases her arm, and gives her a nod.  
“I’ll find time again when I can.”

 

As it turns out, what they needed her there for was her expertise in star destroyers and TIE fighters--Rey is somewhat surprised, but whatever the General is planning, she wants them all to be ready in the case of any kind of emergency. Rey is acting as an instructor to the pilots and technicians--apparently she’ll be doing this regularly now, going over schematics for the enormous destroyers and giving the pilots a crash-course (hopefully not literally) in how to pilot a TIE fighter in the case of an emergency.  
“Could have used this about a year ago,” Poe jokes when everyone is finally gathered, and there are chuckles around the room, but everyone present knows he is right, recognizes the gravity of the statement.

Rey has no idea how to be an instructor. She agrees to the ‘lectures’, but after the initial meeting lets out, she faces General Organa and looks concerned as they walk outside into the dusk.  
“I’m really no good at this,” she groans, and the General, Leia, laughs, putting a hand on her shoulder.  
“You’re the best we’ve got. No one knows these ships like you do--we need your knowledge here.” Rey feels honored by the woman’s confidence in her, but she hopes it is not misplaced. She turns to leave, but before she can:  
“Rey? Was everything all right when I called you?”

Rey pauses, swallowing.  
“Er--yes, did it not...seem all right?” She tries for effortless deflection and knows it failed.  
“You seemed a bit distracted. I know you’ve wanted time on your own recently, and I want to be able to let you have that, but--”  
“Oh--ah--no, I’m happy to help, General, please--” She faces Leia head-on again, looking apologetic. “You’ve done so much for me, and I--all I want is to help, any way I can.” Leia smiles at her, pats her arm.  
“You’re a member of the Resistance, Rey, but everyone has a personal life.” She gives her a meaningful look, “Even you. I wanted to get started on all of this as soon as possible, but I wouldn’t have contacted you like that if it wasn’t important.” Rey nods, gives Leia a warm smile. Tries not to think about the fact that she interrupted her when she was about to have sex with her renegade son.  
Thank the Force Leia has turned away by the time Rey even thinks about this for a moment again; her face goes pink and she heads for her room at a quick pace.

Kylo Ren is back on the Finalizer, later. He strides through the ship to his private quarters without a word--though news of his return travels quickly enough. Mitaka is sent to him from Hux; Kylo would honestly pity the cowering idiot if he wasn’t such a loyal dog to Hux, which presented itself as an annoyance and a potential problem.  
“Ah, General Hux has requested an update on your--”  
“‘Requested’?” Kylo’s voice repeating the word comes through his helmet’s modulator and already Mitaka is looking like he’s squirming under his collar.  
“Yes, sir.”  
“Inform General Hux that I would like to remind him I am on direct orders from Supreme Leader Snoke, and that he should have more important things to do than look for opportunities to gloat, Lieutenant.” Mitaka looks incredibly uncomfortable. “Word for word, Mitaka.” The lieutenant swallows, gives Ren a curt nod, and then bows out of his doorway again. Kylo rolls his eyes once he removes his mask and rakes a hand through his hair, muttering to himself. “Blithering moron…no wonder they respond so well to that orange-haired ass…”

Said ‘orange-haired ass’ winds up paying a visit not long later. Kylo is toweling his hair from a visit to his ‘fresher, bare-chested and still wet in his unfastened trousers. Hux doesn’t bother with formalities, barging into his room rather unceremoniously, and Kylo Ren raises an eyebrow at this, damp, dark hair falling into his face some. Hux looks irritated, folding his arms and, to Kylo’s irritation, smoking a cigarette.  
“And here I was wondering when you’d darken my doorway, General.”  
“You constantly dismissing my lieutenants is starting to get on my nerves, Ren,” Hux drawls out with an exhale of smoke, and Kylo’s face is a mask of annoyance as he puts the cigarette out with a small nudge via the Force. Hux looks nonplussed, simply withdrawing a lighter from his coat. “The Supreme Leader wants updates--if you put it out again, Ren, I’m going to have you detained.” The General’s voice is clipped but firm. Kylo Ren gives him an imperious look.  
“Disproportionate response, I think.” Hux just lights the cigarette again and gives Kylo a withering look.  
“An _update_ , Ren. On the girl.” Kylo bristles at this, but remains outwardly placid.  
“I will give _Leader Snoke_ an update myself. I’ll ask you to keep your nose out of my personal orders--your childish interference is hardly called for, _General_ .” Hux manages to look bored.  
“You’ve been taking too long. The Supreme Leader is questioning things. Normally I wouldn’t _care_ , but if you fuck this up then I’ll be the one assigned to dealing with the...issue...and I prefer not to get my hands dirty if I don’t have to.”

Kylo’s jaw tightens. He’s been worried about that being the case; if Hux winds up assigned to this task, then things will get much more complicated and much more dangerous.

He’s lying in bed later and trying not to think of how annoyed he was earlier when he feels it--feels _Rey_ , feels something brushing at his consciousness. Rey is...thinking about him? Not trying to contact him, but this is something they’ve figured out already. She’s thinking about him, almost summoning him with that alone. He hesitates for a moment, but then hears her voice, choked and quiet in the bond.  
_Nnh--Kylo…_ _  
_ He knows she’s not in pain. He knows she’s not in danger. He settles himself and goes to her, and finds exactly what he knew he would.

Rey is in her room, tucked up against the wall on her bed. The sheets are all tossed away from her and she is breathing hard. One hand has pushed her nightshirt up to tweak a stiffened, dusty-pink nipple, and the other hand is between her legs, fingers already slick with her own arousal. Her knees are tucked up some and her toes flex and curl into her sheets, and she looks desperate, frustrated even, biting her lips and tossing her head back, her brown hair mussed from her efforts. He wonders how long she has been at this--the room is warm both in temperature and in energy, but Rey is struggling to reach her climax and she feels frustrated.  
“Kylo…” It slips out of her lips and immediately he feels himself go hard, fighting a dry mouth before finally forcing himself to move.

She is so absorbed in her task that she hasn’t noticed him there until he is on her bed with her, leaning over her and bracing himself with a hand on her wall over her head. She gasps when she sees him, but he feels no protest from her. No protest when he leans down to kiss her, even if the feeling is not quite real. No protest when he reaches to take her wrist and guide her hand away from her soaking slit and no protest still when he breaks the kiss to draw her hand up so he can take her slick fingers into his mouth.  
Rey’s breath is trapped in her throat and her heart is pounding in her chest, but he is here, oh Force, he is here with her but _not_ here--she feels his tongue on her wet fingers and it feels real enough just then, real enough to make her muscles clench as she shudders under him and feels the wet between her legs grow, soaking her bedsheets even further. She has no idea what this will become, what it even _can_ become, but kriff, she wants him so badly it makes her ache.

He can feel how desperate she is through the bond, and he’d be lying if he tried to deny the same hunger in himself. Rey’s face is flushed and little strands of hair stick to her face and neck. The muscles in her legs flex and her body shivers in anticipation, and Kylo Ren wants to lay claim to her entirely, wants to touch and taste and make her shudder for him, make her writhe and moan as she did in the field before, make her scream for him as he only ever could in his own dreams. Rey’s breathing is heavy and ragged and he wishes he could taste her on her fingers, but there is promise for that, promise here for another time, for later, for more.

He leans back finally, and gives a little jut of his chin.  
“Move away from the wall.” His pants are _chafing_ him at this point, and he quickly settles into her place when she moves. Rey looks at him questioningly, but he reaches and tugs her back to him, her back against his chest. She’s confused by this, but then one of his hands is cupping one of her small breasts, and she lets out a short breath, shifting back against him as his fingers find her nipple, rolling it between them and tugging just slightly. It feels real enough to make her arch, sucking in a hissing breath and clutching at his thighs on either side of her. He nudges her head to the side with his nose and leans his head in to kiss her neck, his opposite hand sliding over the curve of her side to the plane of her stomach, over the contours of her muscles, dipping low but not _too_ low, not yet. Rey bites her lip and swallows, anticipating his fingers trailing lower, waiting to feel them where she aches for him most, but the feeling doesn’t come, and she groans miserably, her nails digging into his legs.  
“Nngh--Kylo--kriff, stop teasing me--” He rakes his teeth over her neck in response.  
“Not yet.”

When she feels like her breast can take no more of his teasing, his hand moves to the other, and Rey whimpers, grinding her hips back against his. She can feel his cock through his pants, can feel where his own arousal has begun to leak through the cloth, and she wants to feel it on her skin--she reaches hands back to try and find the fastenings, but her arms can’t quite manage, and she grunts some in frustration, feeling his roaming hand slide up over one of her thighs now. Rey wants skin, she wants heat and slick and skin, she wants to feel how much he wants her, wants to feel him hard and desperate against her, and she does the only thing she can think to do. She reaches with the Force.  
This is possibly one of the most irresponsible things she’s done with this ability, she thinks, trying to metaphysically unfasten his pants. It starts to work--and then he chuckles against her skin and the hand unoccupied with her nipples reaches between him to free his aching cock from his clothes finally. Rey groans, rocking her hips back, feeling him pressing into the curve of her ass and shivering. Oh _Force_ , this feels good even in the bond, she thinks of what it might be like in the physical world and her cunt clenches at the thought.

His cock slides into the cleft of Rey’s ass and Kylo Ren lets out a guttural moan against her neck, pinching almost too-hard at her nipple and rutting up against her.  
“Kriff-- _Rey--_ ” And finally, finally, his hand moves between her legs. His fingers trail down over her soft curls and slip between her soaked folds to brush just barely over her clit--and Rey spasms. He feels her soak his fingers without coming, feels her hips buck and her back arch, and his hand leaves her breast to take her chin, holding her head so he can suck on the skin at the hinge of her jaw. His arm keeps her pressed back against him and his fingers brush her clit again before slipping further, teasing enough to make her legs tremble and jolt before he slowly slides a finger into her. Rey bites her lip to keep herself from crying out, and Kylo Ren lets this go for now. Soon they will have a proper space for this. Soon she won’t have to hold in her voice, he will make certain of that. She writhes against him, rocking against his hand and letting out a sob when he slips another finger inside her, his thumb running a slow circle around her clit.  
“Ky--Kylo--” Her voice is high and ragged, desperate for him. Her thighs squeeze around his arm and he finally uses his own irresponsible Force influence to keep them apart, his fingers working in and out of her as she clenches and squirms around him. He can feel everything, she can feel everything, through the bond--Rey’s building pleasure, Kylo Ren’s anticipation, their mutual need, the shared heat their bodies should have, pressed together like this. It is not overwhelming just then, not like it was when they were on the fields of tall grass, when their bodies were filled up with both of them at once--but it is enough at the moment.

“You’re close,” he growls into her ear, grinding his cock against her ass in an attempt to help himself along as well. Rey whines, hungry and desperate, grasping at his arms.  
“Ahh--I--please--kriff, Kylo--please, _please_ \--” He tilts her head back some so he can look down into her face, breathing hard at the glorious view of her in his arms like this, the look on her face as he’s pleasuring her this way.  
“Please what?” Rey is panting for breath, her hips jerking against his hand, but she is holding back, even just a little.  
“Force--I want you to fuck me--I want you to fuck me _properly_ ,” she protests, reaching a shaking hand back to graze her fingertips along the length of his cock. “I want you, I want you in me, please--” She knows she’s not skilled with words but she wants, she wants, she _needs_ , and he is holding back! She wants to feel him filling her up, wants to know what it’s like to have their bodies real and truly joined--but he shakes his head, curling his fingers inside of her and brushing something that makes Rey’s eyes widen and her breath cut off in her throat. He kisses the corner of her lips, pressing his nose almost too-hard into her cheek. Her fingers on him are almost, _almost_ enough to make him give in to her pleas, but not now, not yet.

“Not this way, not here,” he rumbles, driving his fingers into her again, “but I will. I’ll fuck you until you’re aching from it and still begging me for more.” His thumb rubs at her clit until it nearly hurts and Rey cries out, straining against his hold and driving her hips down onto his hand now, riding his fingers wildly in her rush to orgasm. “I’ll fill your cunt and make you scream for me, Rey, _my_ Rey.” Rey whines and whimpers, gasping for breath, rocking against him desperately.  
_My Rey, mine, all mine, no one else will ever have you this way, no one else will ever know your body this way, no one else will feel you like this--all mine, all mine…_  
Rey sobs and trembles, clenching around his fingers, feeling the tension in her body so painfully close to snapping.  
Kylo--Kylo, Kylo, please, please, so close, please, kriff, need you need you need you please make me come please-- He bites at her lower lip and his fingers thrust into her clenching heat fast and deep as he can manage, his thumb rubbing at her clit deliberately.  
“Come for me, Rey,” he rasps against her mouth, “come for me **now.** ” He commands, deep and low, and the tension in Rey’s body shatters.

Kylo Ren drowns out Rey’s screams with a hard kiss, holding her head back to his, grinding against her ass and rocking with her through her climax. Her body spasms around his fingers and his hand is _soaked_ along with her bedding. His own release is close behind hers and coats her back, hot and sticky between their bodies and they think, in unison, how magnificent this might have been had their distance not been an obstacle.

The bond strains after so long. They are both tired from the day and from _this_ , and Rey needs fresh sheets, and to use the ‘fresher. She wonders if she can hide this when she goes to clean her laundry. Kylo Ren does not want to withdraw from her body, does not want to let her out of his arms, but all the same he needs to clean up in the physical world and needs to get rid of his own soiled bedding now. The sensation of _wet, slick, sticky,_ between them disappears when the bond wavers, but Rey is soaked in her own mess just as Kylo Ren is covered in his. Before they can stop it they are both alone in their rooms again, chests heaving and temperatures normalizing again.

 _We should...we should do that again._ Rey’s voice surprises him as he gets up, going to clean himself. He smirks to himself, cock twitching at the thought.  
_We’ll do much more than that,_ He promises, and Rey sucks in a shuddering breath, her legs still trembling, her cunt still too-sensitive from his work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maki, you are a saint for beta reading for me. the b e s t.
> 
> well fam, here we are, point of no return.  
> if you're still with me after this then ya'll are troopers
> 
> rating change! we're officially rated 'e' now; i feel like i've hit a milestone.  
> for anyone out there that's been hanging in for smut: listen guys it's lucky 13 here and if you're still around then lord, i'm amazed at your patience with me. hope this was a good preview for future content. c;
> 
> as always: thank you guys all for reading and sticking it out with me. you guys are all amazing and i am so, so ridiculously grateful for any and all feedback!


	14. Dissonance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Connections._  
>  Anticipation. Suspicion. Visions of the past.

The bond is quiet, subdued over the next week. Rey gives her ‘lectures,’ and talks with technicians and mechanics, drawing up blueprints as she can remember them, for small ships and star destroyers. General Organa is more than impressed, she sits in the back of Rey’s meetings and listens with the rest of the Resistance members present. Rey fumbles some at first, she struggles with wording and how to instruct people, but somehow over the first few days, she pieces things together. She has a natural way with people, in that strange subtle way that suggests she has no idea just how charming she really is.

Rey has also been given an old ship to customize for herself. The craft is old, not quite in working condition, but Rey is delighted. She has all of the parts in the base at her disposal, any tools she could need, and time to work. Immediately, she throws herself into the work--the other pilots and mechanics watch her in the hangar, day after day, grinning to each other and chatting with Rey as she fiddles with wiring and sets the old ship to rights again.

At night, she is tired enough that she can fall asleep without delay--which is a convenient way to escape thinking about Kylo Ren.

Somehow she can’t bring herself to touch herself again, not like that, as good as it was. She thinks of that night sometimes and shivers a little, thinks of the ghosts of his hands on her skin and _wants..._ but as always, it is not the right time, not the right place. The bond is quiet. The bond is placid, waiting to be disturbed again, waiting for them to dive in again to meet one another in the deep ocean that it has created between them.

She sleeps, sometimes dreams of him. She knows she does, even if she cannot always recall. She sleeps, she dreams, she waits for him to call to her again--where will they go, now? What new planet will she visit, what sights will she be able to see now? Rey thinks of their match in the grass sea, and her skin tingles at the memory of no longer being alone in her own skin, of being inside someone else’s. Moving as one, two bodies occupied by a consciousness that is not one and not both, but something different. Sometimes, she feels a pull at the edges of herself, and she knows he is thinking of the same things.

Kylo Ren’s days pass somewhat differently. Snoke is very suspiciously absent again, Kylo wonders what will happen when he rears his head once more. After the confrontation with Hux, he trusts the sour-faced officer even less than before--if such a thing is even possible. Hux has officers and troopers alike keeping tabs on him; Kylo knows this, but most of them keep their distance. Most of them know, understand. The defeat on Starkiller was not ordinary. The defeat on Starkiller had not made Kylo Ren any less dangerous. The clever spies catch sight of their less-clever compatriots, and they keep their eyes forward, never up to Ren’s mask, never down to the crumpled bodies on the durasteel floor. Hux hears of another body to dispose of and his lips tug downwards just slightly.  
“Find a replacement. A _competent_ replacement.”  
“But sir, Ren--”  
“--Is apparently ridding us of weak links.”  
And that is that.

Kylo Ren remains present around the ship, despite the ‘surveillance’ being kept on him. Hux ignores him, but Kylo knows that Hux understands this is out of spite.  
Most things he does among the members of the Order are done out of spite. 

Unfortunately, this surveillance also means that he needs to be at least somewhat more careful with his comings and goings, at least for the time being. He thinks nothing of the first few days, but when Hux’s spies are still on his radar after a week...he’s beginning to lose patience with this. Hux has him caught in a hellishly frustrating situation, though, and he knows it--voice his anger over Hux’s 'eyes' on him, and he rouses _suspicion_ more than anything else. _That_ frustrates him even more, in the end. That prick Hux, treating him like some prisoner…

Truth be told, he’s gotten himself into this situation, and he knows he has. Rey...Rey is worth the subterfuge, knowing the blinding light and the burning energy that is _Rey_ , it is worth it. It will be worth it, in the end. He tells himself this, over and over, as he is tearing apart yet another meeting room after a particularly droning talk.

Into the next week, Rey is the one who reaches out finally. She is meditating and waiting for Luke, knows that now she _cannot_ leave for another few days, wants to know what is going on, what is happening, why has it been so long now?  
_Kylo…_ She calls out into the bond, sliding her consciousness into the inbetween, wading into the sea of stars their link creates. _Kylo?_  
He is watching a fleet of TIE fighters take off from his vantage point over a launch bay, and suddenly goes still, the thunderous noise of the ships screaming out of the Finalizer silences and all he can hear is her voice.  
_Rey._ He shuts his eyes behind his mask, sees her across a divide like the cosmos in the bond. She wades through galaxies like she is walking through rising water to meet him. _Rey, I’m here._ She stops, frowning at him some when she sees him.  
_What’s going on? It’s been almost two weeks!_ She sounds at least _somewhat_ worried. He sighs in aggravation, shaking his head.  
_I’m being watched._ Rey looks startled.  
_Watched?_ She understands this, however, and her brow furrows. _I thought you were above being watched like that--_  
_As I should be!_ He snaps, and Rey scowls at him some.  
_You should have told me, I would have…_ Would have what? Stopped waiting so anxiously for him to come to her again? Stopped thinking this would end peacefully? Come to him instead? But what good would that do? He seems to sense this, and wades into the cosmos towards her now.  
_I am sorry I’ve made you wait. I would have said something if I’d known I’d be treated like a common prisoner here._ His words are irritated, scathing. She understands his frustration, all the same.  
_Then we...we just have to...to stay away for a little while._ She sounds deflated, looking down some. Stars swirl around her legs, planets orbit her thighs and systems drift past her, glowing bright and fading as they move further away. All of space and time between them, energy and life and power, light and darkness...stretched out this way, she is reminded of how far apart they are, even now.

Kylo Ren watches her, hears the soft disappointment in her voice and clenches his fists in aggravation. He is responsible for this, for the change in her tone, for the _disappointment_ she feels...and there is nothing he can do about it right now. The stars between them stretch out, pulse and swirl and lazily swim through the dark sea of space, and he wades in further towards her, turns himself to face a viewport in the real world so he can just _drift_ and be with Rey.  
_I hate this._ He looks angry, and she feels the frustration from him. His fingers are tight fists, and he stares at her with longing and desire in his eyes. _I want to see you. I want to be with you--but I won’t risk you like this._ Rey takes a deep breath, gazing back at him.  
_I want to see you, too._ She offers him a lopsided smile, _I’ve tried to be patient, you know._

Kylo Ren almost smiles. It is a softer expression, and Rey notices it reaches his eyes.  
_You’re much better at being patient than I am,_ he remarks, and shakes his head. Being with her here is at least helping his mood some.  
_Well, I’ve had years to practice._ She glances off, her tone wry and not entirely amused anymore. He reaches out a hand to her after a moment, gazing at her intently.  
_Where are you right now?_ She hesitates in taking his hand.  
_Meditating outside. Luke is coming, he’ll be here soon._ His fingers curl in some at that. Rey sighs. _That’s why I reached for you now. Even if we wanted to go anywhere, I can’t, not for...well, at least a few more days._ Kylo frowns.  
_Why’s he there now?_ Rey raises an eyebrow at him over a flat look.  
_He’s still my master, you know._ Kylo looks less-than-enthused about this answer. In fact, he looks downright petulant, taking a step back from her and sulking already.  
_I’ll just stay away for now, then._ Rey rolls her eyes.  
_There you go again, sulking._  
_I am_ **_not_ ** _sulking._ There is an edge to his voice and Rey ignores it, folding her arms.  
_I’m pretty sure I know what sulking looks like._ He glares at her now, eyes narrowing.  
_I’ll go and_ **_sulk_ ** _on my own, then. I’m sure you want to get to your lessons with Skywalker._

Rey sighs, rolling her eyes again.  
_Well if you’re going to be like this, you may as well._ She has no patience for him when he’s like this, sulking and griping like a youngling. He looks almost surprised that she waves him off him like this, rounds on her with widened eyes.  
_I’m **so glad** it’s so easy for you to dismiss me! _ He hurls the words at her and Rey feels his offended bristling loud and clear. He’s almost hurt that she didn’t give in just then, but Rey gives him a disbelieving look.  
_Are you joking? I’ve spent almost two weeks waiting just to spend time with you! It’s not ‘easy for me to dismiss you’, but I hate when you act like such a--like such a spoiled child!_

Kylo Ren blinks at her, and then his face is a mask of anger as he leans over her.  
_A ‘spoiled child’? You sit waiting for_ **_Skywalker_ ** _to come and teach you, train you, knowing that while he is there you and I can have minimal contact--do I have no right to be upset, then?_ His tone is demanding, angry, and he leans in on her, staring into her face. Rey frowns back at him.  
_You can be upset! I’m upset that we can’t go anywhere, that we can’t meet up! But I’m not being like--I’m not kriffing sulking like you are!_ She refuses to back down, facing him firmly. His lip curls in a snarl, though.  
_Sulking--Because I’m showing my irritation, I’m ‘sulking’ to you._  
_No, you’re sulking because you’re huffing and, and…_ she finds herself imitating him before she realizes it, _...and doing this!_ He stares at her, stunned. She’s--she’s _mocking_ him?!  
_Go to your_ **_master_** _,_ He spits at her now, voice thick with vitriol, _leave me to_ **_sulk._ **

And he withdraws from the bond, leaving Rey to stand alone, adrift in the silence of the universe contained within their link.

Rey comes out of meditation in an aggravated mood, frowning at nothing and exhaling loudly to herself. He’s so difficult sometimes, she hates when he acts that way--and now there is nothing, not even a conversation between them. Rey knows this will pass. His moods always do. She takes another deep breath, and waits for Luke to arrive.

Kylo Ren takes his anger out with the Knights of Ren. The group of them spar--in the end, Kylo Ren takes them all on alone. When it is over, he is bloodied and bruised, but the knights concede to him. He takes in the sight of them with their new wounds, sprawled where he’s left them, and his eyes are hard. He is Master of Ren for a reason. He is hailed a warlord for a reason. He is called _Jedi Killer_ , warrior, for a _reason_. He steps over their limbs and tells himself that it is weakness that drives him to want to cross the bond to her again, to apologize, to ask for her company a bit longer.  
She is the only one who can bring him so low. She is the only one who can burrow her way under his skin as she does--she never cowers from him in fear, she never panders to his whims. She has called him _monster_ , _creature_ , _murderer--_ but only her, only her, only she can have such power over him. Only she can call herself his equal. She belongs to him, his equal, his balance. Mated to him by their bond, and now, maddening though it is from time to time, neither of them can escape.  
_Rey._ His Rey. She infuriates him but in the end she is _his_.

He stands over Muulo Ren, the knight’s arm clearly broken where he lays on the cold floor. Jahlo Ren is nearby, bleeding through torn black robes, and Nilo Ren is coughing, holding a wound on their side. Kylo Ren smears a trail of blood leaking from his split lip, and spits out the coppery red pooling in his mouth.  
They are his to command, but they are not his equals. Not like her.  
He eyes their battered bodies with disdain. He shouldn’t be so bothered by Rey taking a trifle of time with Skywalker. She belongs to him already, there is nothing the old Jedi fool can do. It is only a matter of time before they are together again. They _belong_ together. He knows this--and Rey knows this as well.

Luke arrives, in the meantime. Rey feels restless, grips at her saberstaff and taps her fingertips and her foot anxiously. Luke notices this, of course. She has no real excuse to offer, and when he asks if she would like to spar with him, eyebrow raised, she nods and figures maybe this will help her release some of this odd energy.

Rey faces Luke in one of the training arenas on the base. Leia spectates nearby, and even Finn and Poe have come to watch things. Rey doesn’t feel any different with them watching, but the aggravated, unsettled energy coursing through her craves release, and when Luke gives her the nod to begin, Rey feels something push her into action.  
She rushes her master, quick and swinging hard, and her movements do not seem like her own, but it feels good to _move_ , to _fight,_ and she gives into the thrill.

Luke looks somewhat troubled by her behavior here--Rey comes at him like she’s fighting an enemy, she swings like she aims to kill: hard and aggressive, advancing on Luke even as he begins to stop his offense and shifts into defense. She sees his face and everything falls away around them. She swings, steps forward, over and over-- _holding me back holding me back too much restriction too many rules too much inaction let me fight let me fight let me--_ she feels angry, feels all the frustration and the confusion and the doubt she’s felt about his teachings for months now. She looks into Luke’s eyes and sees doubt and distrust, and she bares her teeth in challenge. _The Force chose me the Force knows me I am strong I do not need your restraint I do not need your boundaries!_

Luke finally tires of fending Rey off; something is very wrong, something is very _off_ about Rey now, and he Force-pushes her back--  
Rey _withstands_ , skids back a foot or two on her heels, and beats through the Force to get at him again. There is a gasp and a shout to the side as Rey knocks her master from his feet, and then things seem to...sharpen, become clear again. Rey stares down at Luke with wide eyes, breathing hard and immediately backing up as Luke gets back to his feet and her friends rush into the arena. Luke’s expression is stony, and Rey feels tremors in her limbs, somehow sickeningly delighted with being able to fight that way. She knows this feeling, she remembers this feeling--the memory of it carries the scent of blood and burning flesh, sweat and fear and _cold_ \--she has fought like this before, has set loose her anger and her emotions like this, but before…

Luke brushes himself off and Finn and Poe eye Rey incredulously, almost worriedly.  
“Rey…?”  
“Rey, what’s--”  
“We’ll talk later, Rey.” Luke’s voice is low, but cuts over the others. Rey swallows some and wipes at her face with the back of her arm some, turning and leaving the arena.  
Leia makes her way over to the men as Rey departs, and she looks concerned.  
“Is she all right?” Luke’s brow is knit and he watches Rey leave.  
“I don’t know. I _do_ know that I haven’t taught that fighting style--not to _her_.”  
Leia understands. She is silent, thinking of her son, thinking of this girl who is so like him. Her mind wanders to a night, months past, when the rain fell heavy and Rey returned to the base with blood on her lips. Leia thinks, Leia _hopes_ , as she has always done, as she will always do.

Rey paces in her room. Why did she do that? Why did she _like_ doing that? She stops in front of the wall finally, and bumps her forehead to the hard stone, trying to focus.  
Luke has spoken of ‘balance’. Kylo Ren speaks to her of things beyond ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’. Rey just wants answers, she wants to _understand_. There is so much more, so much she needs to understand, so much she needs to learn--everyone seems to be looking to her as some miraculous savior, but she doesn’t understand _why_. She shuts her eyes, trying to center herself, trying to gather her thoughts. Push out everything else, everyone else. Focus. Focus on something, anything, try for a vision, _something_ \--

She thinks of the night on Endor, the voice that is not her own.

Rey pushes. She grabs hold of the voice in the Force, focuses on it, tries to draw it to her. Something is strange--the voice, the energy of it, is still, quiet, as if in stasis of some kind. Like a memory yet to be recalled, a light softly glowing in the dark depths of the cosmos. Rey reaches out, tries to touch it, and finally, finally, her fingertips make contact.

The universe _lurches_.

Rey is out of time, out of the universe, somewhere she exists and does not, a storm of visions and sounds and energy around her. A vision that hits her like a tidal wave, dragging her under and tossing her around in its powerful current.

 _Lightsabers--she knows this sound. Blasters, troops marching--and then laughter, soft music--a crowd cheering--speeders racing by, ships shrieking through the void of space--a red gown, a white face, a red face, angry black and angry red everywhere--Master!! Master, no!!--anger and deep sorrow. She runs through a hangar and trips, falling to the floor of a bright, open room. She struggles to get to her feet--brown robes, figures seated around her. The voice again. “The boy is dangerous, they all sense it--” The room falls away before she can make out faces and she is turning around in circles, trying to find a path._  
  
_Light and sound, happiness, so much happiness, joy and laughter, fear and peace and admiration--the rush of battle and the fear for a sonfriendbrotherstudentfriendfriendfriendalwaysfriend--Rey tumbles through the dunes of a sandy desert, rolls to her feet to run, bodies around her, white and armored, blaster shots again but she pitches forward and faces down a beast rushing her in an arena of noise, screams into nothing and turns to run but there is a dark place there, echoing voices, shouts, and she runs but then the darkness turns to light and she is running through a hallway in a busy building, passing people in brilliant robes, huge windows show an endless city and she knows the jubilation of recognition the companionship of a brother, fighting beside those you love and seeing them safely emerge together, three smiles two that burn brighter two that should not be but how can they not--”Be mindful of your thoughts…”_

 _She sees brown robes again and runs towards them, familiar and alien. Secrets and darkness, so much, so much fear and anger, there must be balance, so much darkness, no, my friend, no… She feels her body convulse, racked with pain and deep sorrow, and the city falls away. Red, burning heat, tears and sweat, I do not want to do this, I cannot do this--”You were the chosen one!” Burning, everything is burning until there is nothing and then there is white, so much white, cold and hard, Rey runs through a freezing hallway towards the sounds of babies crying and death beneath, and blinding white focuses to pinpoints, white flowers in dark hair, blue, blue, like water, like the sky, cool and soft and calm, take her somewhere far from all of this, I could not save her, could not save them, cool dark that turns into dry winds and pale blue sky and pale gold sand…_ _  
“Trust in the Force, Rey.”_

Rey tumbles backwards off of the wall, gasping for breath, her eyes wide and shocked, her throat dry, eyes damp, heart pounding.  
“What--what was that, what was that, who--” She is shivering, raw emotion and energy still draining from her. Her skin is prickled everywhere, as if she’s got electrical currents running through her veins. “What _was_ that?” She gasps, clutches her chest. Her heart is aching, it feels so heavy and so old and so full, “What _was_ that…”

He is there, before she knows it.  
_Rey. What’s going on, what’s the matter--_ She starts at the sudden intrusion, not having expected this.  
“What--” _Kylo??_ He is unkempt, bloody and ragged, his eyes wild and his teeth and fists clenched. He looks around as if expecting some dire situation, but finds none, and focuses back on her, visibly deflating some.  
_What--what’s going on? You--I felt--_ Clearly he’s been preoccupied like she has, but she cannot fathom what he’s been doing. It looks like he’s been in battle, and she isn’t sure she wants to know more. She shakes her head, sitting up on her floor and rubbing her head some.  
_I--There was--I had a sparring match, with Luke, and I…_ Kylo Ren’s eyes widen again and he looks _murderous_ , looming over her, his fingers curled like the claws of a beast.  
_WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?_ But Rey is tired, worn out from everything. She takes her head in her hands and tucks up her knees.  
_I almost hurt him. I lost control, and I nearly did something terrible._

Kylo Ren straightens. He looks down at her, huddled on her floor, and for a moment he is resentful--she is so distraught over nearly harming her instructor in a sparring match? But no...this is Rey, something must have been jarring for her to be upset this way.  
He crouches in front of her now.  
_Tell me what happened._

Rey explains. She tells him what she felt, how angry and bitter she was, how she wanted to hurt him and then nearly did. How good it felt, how much she wanted to give in. Kylo Ren is silent, watching her through dark eyes under a heavy brow.  
_...What else happened, Rey?_  
Rey shuts her eyes, her knees against the back of her hands. She takes a deep breath.  
_I had a vision, I think. I can’t...I can’t remember most of it. Just a bunch of noise...places and sounds…_ It is a lie, but she’s so hazy right now her thoughts are hardly that clear for him either. Kylo Ren’s eyes narrow some in suspicion, but Rey’s mind is a blur of things and he doesn’t have the focus to sort through all of it right now. He takes her word, and takes a deep breath.  
_You’re fine now, Rey._ He doesn’t actually know if this is true, but other than the haze of confusion, she seems all right. There is a beat of silence, and he wonders if this worked. Rey is still huddled on the floor, and he’s not sure if she’s still angry with him. Nothing changes. Finally, with a careful hand, he reaches out and rests a palm on her shoulder. Rey lifts her head, looks up at him with eyes full of confusion and exhaustion, and Kylo Ren’s gaze is firm while his voice is softer. _You’re fine now, Rey._ She just gazes back at him for a long moment, grateful for the gesture. At least one of them seems sure of something right now. She tucks her legs closer, rests her chin on her arms atop her knees.  
_I’m sorry I got so cross with you. Earlier, you know. Shouldn’t’ve called you that. It was stupid._ He blinks in surprise. She’s beaten him to the punch, apologizing like this. He scowls, and she looks confused. _What’s that look for? I said I’m sorry…_  
_I was going to apologize,_ he says stiffly, withdrawing his hand and sitting back on his haunches. Rey just stares for a long moment before her expression neutralizes and she makes a little waving gesture with her hand.  
_Well?_  
_Well what?_  
_Go on, then. Apologize._ She sets her eyes on him intently, and Kylo Ren is blindsided by this.  
_What--_ But she just shrugs some.  
_You said you were going to apologize. Just now._ His jaw tightens some and he isn’t sure why this is so aggravating now. He’s had every intention to apologize...at some point. But now Rey’s staring at him and he has to try not to scowl again, glancing off some and raking a hand through his tousled hair.  
_...I’m sorry._ The words are rumbled out, low and somewhat quiet, but Rey nods anyway. He glances back at her, and finds she is smiling at him.  
_Apology accepted._

Later when he is alone, Kylo Ren stalks the halls of the Finalizer, and thinks of Rey. Apologizing...how she manages to draw things out of him like that is infuriating and strangely pleasing all the same. Rey...she offers a smile and he would give her a thousand planets to call her own. She touches him as she does, so gentle and sweet, and he would do anything to stay there, under her fingers.

Under his helmet, he frowns some. He has no idea where these thoughts have come from--he thinks of Rey and thinks _mine,_ thinks of her in his arms, thinks of how he wants her, only her, wants to keep her to himself, wants nothing, no one else, to touch her…He thinks of her smile, thinks of her soft skin, her warm lips…

Kylo Ren’s fists clench some and he runs his tongue over his lips behind the safety of his mask. His muscles tense and he feels his heartbeat quicken and he _remembers_ \--Rey, warm and nearly real against him. Her breath in quick pants, her head tossing against his shoulder as she mewls and writhes in his grasp. He did that; every gasp, every shiver, every jolt of her hips, was for him. He shudders some under his robes and his steps speed up now. His fingers flex at the thought of her small breasts under his hand, how she quivered and stiffened at his touch.  
_“Kylo…”_ He hears her voice, high and breathy in his mind. She moans and arches for him, and he has to swallow and duck around the next corner, searching for an empty hall, an empty room. Rey is the only thing on his mind, her voice in his ear as if she were there with him now. _“Kylo--Kylo_ **_please_ ** _…”_ _  
_ He finds a storage closet finally, and shuts down the latch on the door behind himself. This is absurd--the Master of the Knights of Ren, reduced to a panting, desiring mess in a _storage closet_. He collapses back on a pile of crates and cleaning utilities, not bothering to unlatch his mask as he frees his aching cock, groaning at the friction and sudden chill of the air. He feels ridiculous, like a hormonal child, and he grits his teeth in his anger at this--but he can picture Rey there, her soft lips curving into a smile, her hands on his robes, her hips rocking up against his…

His spine bows and leather-gloved fingers are coated in slick-- _not the same, not the same, not enough, not_ **_Rey_** _\--_ he bites in a grunt, frustrated with his own weakness, his own desire, the fact that she is not here, that he cannot have her now--

 _Well, this seems like an uncomfortable place for something like...well,_ **_this_ ** _..._

Her voice startles him, and for a moment in his starving haze he thinks he is imagining her. His head flicks up to see her standing there in front of him, though, and he’s at a loss for words.  
_Rey…_  She steps a little closer, looking both mesmerized and a little uncertain. She felt his tug on her consciousness and knew something like this would be what was waiting for her, but actually being here now...  
Somehow his helmet is a pleasing element to her here. Seeing him in this kind of disarray--his robes rumpled, his helmet still in place as his gloved hand strokes his weeping cock--is very, very strangely arousing, and Rey steps forward to place herself between his legs.  
_So this is what happens when you think about me…_ He makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a groan.  
_I happen to know you aren’t above this yourself._ But Rey leans in some, her hands reaching before she can stop herself. Her fingers hover for a split second before displacing his hand on his cock, and a little tremor runs through her body at the feeling. Kylo Ren’s body goes still but he twitches in her hand, and she lowers herself to squat in front of him, her eyes flicking up to his.  
_Do you want me to help you with this?_

Rey moves with a slow fluidity that is hypnotizing and enraging--he strains to keep still, see what she intends to do, but when her hand is around him he clenches fingers, gripping one of the storage crates, his eyes fixed on her, on _Rey_ . Force, he wants her--he wants her like mad, wants to bring her lips to him and feel her mouth--  
He manages a nod.  
**_Yes._ **

Rey’s hands are careful and experimental at first. She strokes him slow and deliberate, feeling the tremble in his body, and she feels a little thrill; his body responds to her and she doesn’t give it a second thought, her eyes on his mask as she lowers her head to run her tongue up the curve of his cock before taking him in her mouth.

Behind his mask, Kylo’s eyes roll back and he moans, reaching for her hair, hunching over her. Rey is pleased with herself, swirling her tongue around the tip of his cock before lowering her head further, taking as much of him in as she can. He reaches to take his mask off but Rey withdraws quickly just to stop him.  
_No. Leave it on._ Her eyes are on his and her lips are slick with _him_ , and Kylo Ren shudders, hands leaving his mask again. Rey licks her lips and he feels fire in his veins as she gives the briefest of nods in satisfaction, and slides her mouth back onto him. There’s a metallic sort of sound and Kylo Ren’s fingers grasp at Rey’s hair, hard and firm, and she _sucks_ , inciting him to pull, to move, to make noise for her. His hips buck up against her mouth and she sees stars when his cock hits the back of her throat but she wants it, wants this, the rough thrust of his hips and the too-hard pull of his hand in her hair, his body shuddering and pulsing in her mouth. Her fingers encircle the base of him, almost as if to hold him down, and she bobs her head, watching his mask and knowing he can see her, knowing he is looking right back. She can feel it, his pleasure, the amazing pleasure _she_ is giving him, and she moans softly around his cock, the vibrations of it in her throat making him jerk his hips and grip at her hair, grinding against her mouth as Rey slips one of her hands between her legs.

Their pleasure is shared--everything is shared, the heat of her mouth, the feeling of his cock on her tongue. The shiver of his thighs, the delicious tension in her belly; Rey teases him with her movements, slowing some until he growls and tries to hold her head still. She stops him, exerts a thin hold over him with the Force and hums around him tauntingly.  
_I’m in control here._  
To which he grudgingly concedes, watching her head pick up pace again, her hand reaching to the base of his cock where her mouth can’t. Fuck, she’s good--he thinks vaguely that she has to have had some kind of practice before this, where could she have learned this, but the thoughts are swept away by her tongue.  
_Fuck--Rey, Rey…_ He’s close, painfully close, and Rey’s fingers tighten some around his shaft, hand moving faster as her mouth slows some. She rushes with her opposite hand, thighs squeezing around her wrist as she struggles to finish herself off as well as him. Two fingers in herself, she rubs her thumb desperately at her clit, and shares that sensation with him when she feels herself getting just as close.  
_Come with me, Force, Kylo, we’re so close!_ He hears her moan into their bond and thrusts into her mouth, feeling their shared climax coming to a peak.  
_Rey--Rey!_  She can feel him twitch and pulse in her mouth until they both crash over into their shared orgasm. Rey comes all over her hand, and Kylo Ren pulls out of her mouth and manages to smother his cock with a rag lying in a pile on one of the utility crates, spilling into the filthy fabric and grunting with the effort under his mask. Better than leaving so much evidence everywhere--Rey’s hands help him along all the same.

Rey is breathing hard, licking her lips and staring up at him.  
_We can’t….we can’t keep doing this…_ she breathes out finally, and he tries to straighten himself out, her words not making sense to him.  
_What--_  
**_I_ ** _can’t keep doing this--it’s not enough._ She is startlingly honest, and he stares down at her through his mask visor. Hunger is in her eyes, he feels it curling in his own gut as he looks at her, face flushed and hair mussed from his fingers. She stands with him, reaching to take the chin of his mask in her fingers, her voice low and firm. _It’s not enough for me like this._ Finally, he speaks again, taking her wrist in a gloved hand.  
_When Skywalker is gone._

In her private rooms, Leia and Luke sit together quietly.  
Leia sits at her desk, and looks more weary than she has in months. Luke sits nearby, hands clasped in his lap. Leia speaks up first, her voice clear in the silence.  
“Do you think she’s had contact with him?” There is something like hope, something like fear in her words. Luke only shakes his head some.  
“I don’t know anything for certain. But she has power--great power, like his. She’s asked me about….” He shakes his head again, and Leia’s head lifts some to gaze at Luke through somewhat narrowed eyes.  
“About what, Luke?” Her twin heaves a heavy, weary sigh.  
“About Force bonds.”  
Leia is silent at this for a long, long time. Luke just sits back, runs a hand over his beard some. The Force rarely made sense, anymore. Whatever it had entangled Rey in, if his nephew was involved…  
“Is it possible…?” Leia is hesitant, so very quiet. Unlike her, only for her family.  
“... _Anything_ is possible, Leia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another little bit of 'down time' for these two. yeesh kylo, get your shit together man. a broom closet?  
> rey's a little tired of waiting on the real thing at this point, hmmm....  
> and we're getting into more _Force visions_ now? whaaaaat..... ;)
> 
> well, as always guys, thanks so much for sticking with things, sticking with the story, with me! all of you out there reading and commenting and clicking that kudos button, you guys are awesome and i am so amazingly grateful for all of it! <3 to anyone out there thinking about it, though: if you're enjoying things then let me know! getting to see that you guys have liked the story just absolutely makes my day <3  
> also a constant: you can find me on tumblr as raindropwaltz!


	15. Singularity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Singularity** _noun_  
>  sin•gu•lar•i•ty /ˌsiNGɡyəˈlerədē/  
> 1 _A point where some property is infinite, as in a black hole. The laws of quantum physics no longer apply._  
>  2 _A point in which things change so completely everything prior is considered obsolete._

The next day is quiet. Rey feels like she’s avoiding Luke--she shouldn’t, she knows she needs to face this, but all the same she’s afraid of the questions he’s going to ask her and she knows, she _knows_ she can’t keep lying. Right now she’s in survival-mode: stay away, avoid the inevitable, skirt around the disasters, just keep moving. She only goes to her room to sleep. Stays in the hangar only an hour or two at a time to work on her ship. Takes long walks, takes snacks from the mess hall when she can. She never gets any kind of summons and no one tells her to go anywhere or do anything, no one passes any kind of messages along to her, and so this odd one-sided game of cat-and-mouse continues for two days before she _does_ get a message from someone.

_Rey._

It’s almost urgent, and she pauses on her way for a snack.  
_Kylo?_ She feels a little rush of excitement--the urgency in his voice isn’t fearful.  
_Can you get offplanet in the next hour?_  She blinks, slowly starting to walk again, turning around towards her room.  
_I….probably, yeah--why?_ Already she’s thinking of where to go, what to take, how long to plan for--  
_Coruscant. I’ve got maybe a day. I’ll get you coordinates._ Rey’s breath hitches.  
_Coruscant?_ She’s never been--but the name makes her feel something strange. She picks up her pace, practically jogging to her room now, past other pilots and Resistance members.  
_Coruscant. It’s...busy. Enough people there it would be easy to get lost or stay under detection._ There’s a smugness in his voice and Rey grins at this, his glee spreading through the bond. He’s figured out a good place for them to-- Rey realizes what the short time limit implies and her belly clenches a little. Oh. She gets to her room and shuts the door behind her, hurrying about grabbing things.  
_I like the sound of that._

She doesn’t say a word as she runs to the ship she’s been using in the meantime, on board before the ramp can even totally lower itself. She kicks the engine to life and within minutes, she’s skimming the atmosphere and shooting offplanet, waiting a comfortable distance before hitting a hyperspace channel. Her heart is beating quickly--part of her is surprised at herself. Is she really doing this? Rushing to another planet to meet _Kylo Ren_ like this…? But then she supposes it’s not really all that different than any other time she’s done this before. Not _really._

Kylo Ren knows this isn’t going to be ideal. They have limited time; he’s managed to get off the Finalizer for a short time and at least Coruscant is so enormous and labyrinthine that no matter where they go, it won’t be easy to find them. He’s nearly there by the time he contacts Rey, just to be safe, and he’s found a place that’s buried deep enough in the planet-encompassing metropolis that their ships will be hidden from view, and they’ll be buried in so much cityscape and urban inhabitants even their Force signatures will be obscured.

The hotel is a seedy place in the midlevels, deep enough in that it’s easily hidden into the jutting skyscrapers and not easy to find. It’s a...place he’s found where the rich pay to be undisturbed, and undocumented. No surveillance, no ledgers, just an exchange of credits and no questions asked. He arrives before she does, sets things up ahead of time. Tells the concierge to admit his guest when she arrives, and he is on pins and needles waiting for her. Rey...his Rey, here with him, _physically_ here with him again. His fingers flex in his gloves and he paces the small room he’s gotten them, waiting, waiting--finally, he stops, rakes a hand through his hair. He feels restless, anxious, excited; he’s _missed_ her, damn it all. She’s wormed her way into him, and now without her…

Rey’s first thought, entering the atmosphere and descending past the clouds to where she can really see the bustling cityscape below, is that she wants to come here again one day.  
Coruscant is so much more than she imagined; the old seat of the Jedi Council, the Galactic Senate...she knows the stories, she knows some of the history here--she wants to explore! She wants to find her way through this maze of buildings and see the old relics from a time before the First Order, before the Empire--she wants to see the senators and the rich in their flamboyant clothing, she wants to try and pilot one of the little zipping crafts she sees weaving between the buildings. This place is _alive_ , and Rey wants to see everything!

But then, she feels the familiar brush of _Kylo Ren_ , and remembers why she’s here.  
_Kylo. I’m here. Tell me what to do._

Landing is easy. Docking her ship is easy. Finding this place he’s talking about? She ends up trying to let her senses guide her to him, listening to him quip at her the entire way about being awful with directions and having no sense _of_ direction.  
_How often do you think I even come to places like this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many buildings or people in my_ **_life_** _\--how do people actually_ **_live_ ** _here??_ If he's honest, he wonders about this sometimes himself.  
_Somehow, they do. Even in the lower levels, where the sun can’t reach--only the very lowest levels of this planet are uninhabited._ Rey shakes her head in wonderment.  
_One day I’m coming back here to explore…_ _  
_ _Hopefully with a guide, at this rate--focus on getting_ **_here_ **_right now, will you?_ The urgent growl in his voice makes a little shiver run up her spine, and when she finally finds the place, her heartrate’s picked up some.

He’s here, he’s here, he’s waiting for her just inside this place, in one of these rooms--she can sense him, the pull is so strong she feels like her feet are moving on their own. She quickens her pace into the place and when the concierge stops her to ask her business, she looks lost for a moment, blinking at the Twi’lek male and his associate, who looks perhaps Duro.  
_Tell them your name is Breha._ She blinks some, but then does as he says, and the Twi’lek nods in recognition, bowing deeply and leading her through a dim hall. This place is clearly somewhere purposefully hidden and purposefully secretive, but she finds herself less concerned with the details the closer she gets to the room he’s in. They stop, finally, and her breath catches in her throat as the Twi’lek bows again and leaves her with just a key to the room, and there is a moment of complete silence in the dim hallway before she lets herself in and rushes in through the open door.

Kylo Ren starts the moment the lock clicks open and whirls around to face the door, and when Rey plows through the entryway it feels like his heart stops for a moment--feels like the _universe_ stops for a moment, and then everything comes jolting back to life as he bolts forward to her, immediately crushing her to his chest.  
Rey can hardly breathe the moment she sees him, and when he surges forward to take her in his arms, she reaches up and takes his face in her hands--and the instant they touch, it’s like the room lights up, like the air around them sizzles with energy; their skin tingles and prickles, and they feel emotion and thoughts and energy rush between them just as they did before.  
_Oh Force--_  
_\--Oh stars--_  
_\--I needed you--_  
_\--Missed you--_  
_\--Here here you’re here you’re here--_  
_\--Wasn’t enough wasn’t enough Force I want you--_  
Dizzying and delightful, they don’t bother to inhibit any of it, don’t try to stop it. Energy and heat pulse through both of them and their lips crash together, abrupt and so, so ready all the same.

This kiss is all hunger, all longing and pent-up desire from weeks of being apart. Teeth and tongue and bruising lips, Rey’s fingers tangling in Kylo Ren’s hair, his arms lifting her almost off her feet to keep her to him. Their breath is in unison, hot and famished gasps between them as they breathe, then collide again.  
Within moments they’re tearing at clothing, kicking off boots. They stumble over the carpeted floor with the effort, fabric nearly ripping off of their bodies in their rush. Rey’s back hits a wall and she drags a knee up between his legs, feeling her skin gradually exposed to the open air. Kylo Ren groans against her mouth, rocking forward against her, pressing her up against the wall further before he feels her reach to unfasten his pants for him and growls, torn between wanting to do things _properly_ and wanting to take her, _now_ , clothes or none, bed or none. She feels the same kind of inner struggle, but she _wants_ him, she wants this, she’s waited and wanted and finally, finally, they’re here, they’re _together_ …

Rey gets his pants sliding down his hips and he grinds up into her, cock rubbing against her through her clothes. She lets out a low whine and bites at his lips, wrapping her arms around his neck when she feels his hands give her pants a sharp tug downwards, baring her damp curls to the air for just a moment before their hips meet again and he slides between her thighs and Rey shudders, fingers curling into his hair as she feels herself drench his cock.  
Kylo Ren groans, rocking against her and slipping between her folds, drunk on their shared lust and the feeling of her arousal steadily growing until it causes a downright _lewd_ sound between them when he moves against her again. Rey tosses her head back against the wall, pressing herself back and tucking a knee up around his hips, urging him on--but he still waits, just a little more, just a moment longer, leaning to bury his face into her neck, sinking teeth into her skin and earning a groan from her.  
“Kriff--stop teasing already!” Her voice is low and needy, and she rolls her hips against him, “All this time we waited…” He reaches to hoist her legs up around him when she does this, holding her at a slight angle against the wall now and lifting his head from her neck to lean over her and lock eyes with hers.  
“Last chance to back out, Scavenger,” he rumbles, low and dangerous, and Rey’s legs squeeze around him, her arms curling around the back of his head to draw him in closer.  His hands go to her bare ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh enough to make Rey gasp, but the pain is _good_ and they both know it, both feel it, both shiver and arch into one another in a sick-desperate lurch of their two bodies seeking out _oneness._  
“Fuck me. _Right now_.”

It takes a moment, there’s the briefest of fumbles before Rey reaches to guide him, but the moment he presses into her it is _glorious._

The bond immediately seems to swallow them both. Everything rushes between them and there is nothing but energy and stars and _them_ , and they are two bodies but somehow one and neither of them can tell where the other ends or begins anymore but it doesn’t _matter_.

Everything crashes back again and they are breathing hard and Rey is tight and burning around Kylo Ren, her spine bowing as she shudders and coaxes him further. _Force_ , she’s a tight fit even as eager as they both are, but she presses her hips further, grits her teeth some and gasps, low and stuttered, and he might worry he’s hurting her but somehow he _is_ her, and she is him, and _fuck, I want this,_ they think as one creature. Kylo’s hand goes between them and finds her clit, stroking to help her along and Rey lets out a noise that is a strangled not-quite-laugh, fingers buried in his thick hair and pulling tightly.  
“Oh fuck--oh Force--” Rey wiggles her hips and wraps her legs around him, and Kylo Ren groans, the pad of his thumb still slowly circling her clit. She feels like she’s melting around his cock, but it’s taking every bit of his self-control to be this patient, even. Rey feels it. She knows he’s holding back and she roughly jerks his head so that their foreheads meet almost too-hard and her eyes are burning into his. “Do it. Do it, do it-- _I want all of you_.” And she does, _stars,_ she isn’t lying, he feels her desire like his own, gnawing at the both of them like they’re _starving_. The bond feels less like a tenuous link now, it surrounds them like the Force itself, wild and alive and _strong_ , and they give themselves over to the blissful delirium it brings when they meld like this.

Kylo Ren shifts against her slowly for a moment but when her body’s resistance is nowhere near as firm as before, he hilts himself inside her and Rey gasps deeply while he pitches forward and buries his face in the valley of her neck and shoulder, letting both of them take another breath before he moves again.

Rey has never felt so _full_ , and when Kylo Ren slowly draws out of her again it makes her breath rattle in her throat at the growing emptiness--but then he slams back into her again and Rey’s eyes roll and she inhales sharply, and it _hurts_ , but ohhhh, she’s never known pleasure this _delicious._ Kylo Ren’s thrusts are steady and deep, at a pace where he can deliberately savor this--where _they_ can savor this. He does not mute Rey’s pain but he works to ease it, fingers kneading her ass and still stroking her aching clit until she bites her lip and shakes her head harshly, sending to him what she can’t force into words.  
_Too much too much oh Force not yet please too much stop stop or I’ll come--_ And his thumb stops immediately, hand shifting to grip her thigh. He manages the slightest nod against her shoulder and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the side of her neck, pausing when he’s nearly pulled out of her again. Rey’s legs tighten around him and she lets out a heavy breath, hands leaving his hair to grip at the shirt still over his back, and his tongue is hot on her throat. Somehow, he manages to sound placid in the metaphysical.  
_Ready?_ _  
_ His answer is her legs pressing at his ass as if to push him back into her, and he slams home--but now, there is no more hesitation, no more slow and steady.

Kylo slams her into the wall and Rey arches forward all the same, she grasps at his shoulders and locks her legs around his waist. She bites back a cry--but he is having none of it, and rams into her hard enough to make both of them see stars momentarily.  
“Not now. Not here. I told you before: you’ll scream for me, my Rey.” His voice is deep and dangerous, the growl of a beast, and Rey lets out a guttural moan.  
“You’d better make me, then,” she gasps defiantly, and means every word of it.  
He bites her throat and Rey nearly tears the back of his shirt open, calling out in spite of herself. Kylo lifts his head again and hovers over her, reaching with fingers still sticky with her arousal to take her face. Their eyes stay locked together as he continues to thrust into her and he looks as pleased as she thinks she’s ever seen him--and Force, it makes her quiver, her cunt fluttering around his cock and making him grind into her.  
“ _Mine_.” And Maker, his mouth falls onto hers and she can’t find it in herself to dispute it.

Kylo Ren holds her face still as he kisses her, hard and demanding, the slap of their hips the only noise in the room until they break and Rey gasps, whimpering when his grip and her legs falter slightly and his cock hits something inside her that makes her whole body jolt and tighten around him.  
“Oh _fuck--_ ” She chokes out, voice heavy with his pleasure and hers, and he grunts, bucking his hips against hers.  
“Fuck-- _Rey_ \--” And now when his hand leaves her chin to dip between them and his thrusts shift around until he finds _that_ spot again, they both move together to stay there, just there, there, there, there--his thumb rubs her clit insistently and Rey’s hips grind her cunt down onto him erratically, both of them teetering on the edge of something that draws them tight and makes his hand, her hips, their mouths urgent. His forehead presses to hers and Rey grits her teeth, the both of them desperate to find release. Kylo’s thrusts begin to shallow and Rey whines, shutting her eyes tightly, but he _stops_ when she does this, and she gasps, writhing against him, but he stays still.  
“Wha--”  
“Open your eyes,” he commands in an almost vicious hiss, “I want you to look at me when you come!” Rey meets his gaze and her brow knits some in frustration.  
“Kriff--” she is breathless and furious and desiring, “Don’t be so difficult--” But when her eyes meet his there is something there that makes the both of them spasm together, enough to knock the breath from them both and give him a final surge of energy to drive, over and over, into that sweet-spot inside her until Rey is keening and cursing and sobbing for him and he is crushing her between his chest and the wall.  
“Fuck--fuck-- _fuck_ \--so close _so close_ \--” Not for the first time, he thinks, _the foulest mouth I think I’ve ever heard on a woman_ , and Rey bites his lower lip, teeth tugging sharply before she lets go, gasping for breath but still commanding. “ _Make me come, Kylo Ren_.” Kylo rocks the heel of his hand against her pubic bone as he grinds his cock into her now, and Rey comes undone.

It’s enough to send them both over. Their orgasm hits the both of them at once, and Rey’s body clenches around Kylo Ren, the two of them sharing the ache and throb and bliss that climax brings. Rey screams when she comes, eyes rolling and body arching, and Kylo lets out something almost like a roar, clutching Rey’s hips. Their bodies stay locked together, between his punishing grip and her legs tight around him, and in fitful tremors their hips rock against one another as the two of them ride their release out. They feel everything as _one_ , and lose themselves to that overload of sensation, drowning in the singularity that their link creates here and now. Here again, they are submerged in a sea of stars, and they breathe deep to let it take them further under, clinging together until they surface again on a foreign shore.

Their foreheads are still pressed together, their hair sticking to sweat-dampened skin, their breath just starting to even out after the world around them seems to dim back to normal and their energy settles around them again. Their eyes open in unison, and they gaze at one another in awe, stunned by what’s just taken place.  
Slowly, Rey’s back leaves the hard surface of the wall. Her arms stay wrapped around Kylo Ren’s neck, and he moves them the distance that seemed so much further earlier to get to the bed, laying Rey back over the mattress before finally sliding out of her--something they both hiss at. Their limbs tingle and with languid, lazy movements, they shuck the remainder of their clothing off the side of the mattress. Kylo Ren crawls back to her side once this is done, and flops down onto his back, shifting so that he can rest his head against her stomach. Rey shifts as well, her body curving around him some, knees tucking up around his shoulder, one arm draping almost possessively over his collar. They breathe together, he wraps an arm around one of her legs and she reaches to run lazy fingers down the line of his forearm, the two of them still drunk on their lust and the bliss of intimacy. Kylo Ren presses a slow kiss to Rey’s calf as if in apology for the ache he feels in her body, and Rey’s fingers thread into his hair to rub at his scalp for the same reason. She feels empty and he feels strangely solitary now that they’ve separated again; how had they managed living as just parts of a whole entity for so long? Still, there is an encompassing satisfaction settled over them both, and it is _good_.

Rey breaks the silence first, but her voice is not unwelcome or surprising.  
“How much longer do we have, you think?” He glances upwards without moving.  
“Well, considering that didn’t take even an hour…” Her fingers tighten and she tugs at his hair suddenly, but he just shuts his eyes and looks pleased.  
“You said...a day, right?” He sighs some now, arm curling around her thigh and pulling her leg so that it drapes over his shoulder.  
“I said maybe a day.”  
“Maybe a day,” she repeats, and shivers when her legs part more, making a quiet sound of surprise at the still-wet and the tingling ache. He shifts some now, rolling over under her and situating himself between her thighs.  
“That good?” He gives her a positively wicked grin and Rey smacks a foot against his back, stomach tightening at the sight of him like this.  
“You _know_ it was--” but she can only let out a breathless laugh as his arms reach to frame her waist. Her hands find his hair again as he lowers his head to kiss the skin under her navel, and she grins. “Gonna try and make it _better_?” He just bites her skin light enough to leave no trace but hard enough to make her groan, and Rey is so, so ready for the next few hours.

They lose track of everything. By the time they collapse completely they’ve exhausted all the energy in themselves on _each other_ , and lying together on the near destroyed bed is like floating--and they sink into the bond and drift together. At some point, they’ve rolled onto their sides and in the delightful nothingness of everything that the bond creates, they link hands and bring their foreheads together and _breathe_ , and exist as One. This is not like visiting, not like simply drifting, not like even sliding into one another to fight--this is fitting together so perfectly and thoroughly that everything is just...right. Dark and Light chase one another around the two of them, shadow licking at soft glow in their eyes when they look at one another again. Rey laughs, quiet and irreverent and jubilant, watching the dark in his eyes glow and then dim, over and again, like--  
“What could you possibly be _laughing_ at?” His tone is anything but upset. Rey just laughs again.  
“Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.” He snorts.  
“You’re breaking the silence.”  
“Oh, well, I’m so sorry…” She isn’t repentant in the slightest, but he kisses her, and Rey sighs.  
“Don’t be. I’m tired of all the quiet.”  
“Honestly I don’t think we’ve had a moment of ‘quiet’ for the past ten hours.” _He_ laughs at this, and Rey likes it. It comes so easily now, and she feels it in her chest, feels the flickering happiness in it. It is small and wary, the kind of happiness that comes from years of being afraid, and Rey nurses it in him as well as she can. Kylo Ren feels it, her gentle touch deep within his consciousness, and lets her do as she likes, for now. Anything she wants, anything at all, just for now. His hands have memorized her by now, the soft curves and the taut planes, the contours of her muscles--and she is deliciously solid, strong and physically powerful in a way that he is pleasantly surprised by--the scars on her arms, her legs, her back, her belly...and he knows she knows him just the same now. He can’t say he regrets it.  
  
This feels like a dream, all of it. They know they will dream of it when it is gone and they are separate again, too--Kylo Ren snickers some, a grin curling at his lips impishly.  
“I could use this to win a fight, you know.” Rey grins back, brow going up.  
“Oh, you mean you _haven’t_ been letting me win?” She laughs deliriously when he draws her into his arms and buries his face against her neck, twining his fingers around a fistful of her hair. This is the most sated, the most at peace she thinks she’s ever felt--she feels the same sort of settled calm in him and she knows this will ache when it is gone, worse than their muscles or the bruises they’ve left on one another will later.  
But Force, she wishes she could do this every day.

 

Far away on a cold star destroyer, General Hux receives a summons.  
He knows what this is about, sighs to himself offhandedly as he strides the sleek halls, boots tapping quietly on the durasteel floor. His arms are folded behind his back, his expression the same stony mask as ever. When he faces the holo of the Supreme Leader, nothing in his demeanor particularly changes, even if now his head is tilted up slightly. Oh, he knows what this is about. His hands clench slightly behind his back.  
_“General, I am placing you in command of Kylo Ren’s objective now.”_  
Fucking Ren.

On a verdant jungle planet, in a stone base of operations, Luke Skywalker paces through a hall.  
It’s been three days, and he sighs to himself as he strides to find the chamber he is looking for, treading quiet and solemn. His face is placid, but there is a dark sort of look in his eyes, something that keeps the Resistance members he passes from distracting him on his way. He knows what’s going on, now, knows what his student hasn’t been telling him. When he finds the room he’s been heading for, he takes a deep breath in the doorway, facing its occupant at her desk.  
“Leia...do you know where Rey is?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo....that one was a doozy.  
> tried to pack a punch into a smaller chapter this time, i hope that got across well enough!  
> just like the summary suggests, though: we've hit a point of no return. things are about to change from here, we're going to see some turbulence coming up.
> 
> i wonder if these two know the phrase 'calm before the storm'...
> 
> as always, thank you all for reading! really i'm always just incredibly blown away and so so touched by any feedback i get, so if you're enjoying the story then thank you for sticking with me and i hope you hang in until the end!


	16. Combustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignition.  
> Embers blazing to life. Flaring anger. Discoveries.

Leia did not know where Rey was.  
Just the same, she doesn’t know the next day, either.

It isn’t until Snap and Poe are walking past and chatting together that she gets some answers.  
“Rey?” Snap jabs a thumb towards the West Hangars. “She left...oh, ‘bout a day ago. Seemed like she was in a hurry, went running past a bunch of us and punched it offplanet.” But that is all. Leia has no answers, nothing concrete--and it isn’t as if she doesn’t trust Rey, doesn’t think the girl can handle herself, but now even Finn isn’t with her, nor any of the droids. Luke’s expression is still solemn and shaded, like he knows some dark truth he can’t speak, but Leia knows what he suspects. She takes a long, deep breath in her office, takes her face in her hands, and prays, hard as she ever has, for something _good._   
She isn’t young anymore, she knows better than to pray for ‘happy endings’. She knows what sacrifice and happiness look like, she knows that she doesn’t want…   
Leia fears for her son. Not for the first time, and not for the last.   
_“There’s still good in him, I know it…”_ _  
_ But Luke had said that about Vader, too, and in the end, Leia had never seen their father alive again, mask or none. Leia wants to see her son alive again. She wants it more than she has wanted anything in a long, long time. _Rey,_ she prays to the Force, to Rey herself, _I know you feel it too._

On Coruscant, two bodies entwined still refuse to move.

They drift in the bond and ignore time in the real-world--but after so long, there is the nagging feeling that _soon, soon, it must end soon_ , and they sigh and prolong the inevitable.   
“Where did this come from?” Kylo Ren asks, idly running a finger along a jagged line running a few inches up the back of her left calf. Rey flexes her toes a little, stretching some. They’ve been at this for...she doesn’t know how long, on and off, tracing scars and telling stories, still in a strange, comfortable haze.   
“Dunespider--I was scavenging off Kelvin Ridge and didn’t see it.” She makes a slicing motion with her hand, “Like that, right up my leg. Could have lost it if I’d been just an inch or two closer…”   
“Dunespider…” He gazes at the pale little scar, finger still on the healed-over skin.   
“Mm. They’re traps, you bury them in the sand and there’s a trigger in the middle--step on one or set it off and--” she mimics her hand closing up over empty air. “They look like spider legs. They’re bulky, can take a human leg right off.” Kylo Ren’s face is an impassive sort of mask. He can see the memory of it, the burning sand, the ‘snip!’ of the metal legs of the thing. A young scavenger girl hurrying to get away, to stop the blood, before predators come.   
“How old were you?” Rey takes a breath.   
“Eleven or twelve, I think, by then.” She looks down at him where he’s resting over her abdomen, “I’ve been...trying to piece together how old I am. You said something before, and I...I realized I don’t really know.” He stares up at her for a long, quiet moment, fingers curling to brush his knuckles over the curve of her leg gently after a while.   
“I think you’re close to twenty-one standard, now.” Rey blinks.   
“You think so?” He nods, and she wrinkles her nose some, grinning brilliantly. “I’m so _old!_ ” He makes a face at this, the reminder of the gap between them suddenly irksome.   
“You’re not _that_ old.” His expression darkens some when he thinks about this further. “And you were too young to be left alone on that pit of a planet.” Rey sighs some, gazing off at nothing, watching in their shared consciousness as stars seem to drift past them overhead.

“There had to have been a reason.” She manages to get it out finally, even if she sounds bitter. “I thought for so long it had to be a mistake, but...but there had to be a _reason_ if...if they just…” Kylo Ren shifts to his side, leaning up over her. His eyes are intent on hers, dark but burning with conviction.   
“You didn’t deserve that. You were a _child_ \--”   
“Nothing is ever that simple!” She cuts him off, raising her voice, sitting up abruptly, almost a note of fear in her voice. “Nothing is ever that simple--you know that too! There--there had to have been _something_ …” She brings a hand up to her face, feeling an old, dull ache. Not now, oh, not now…

His arms wrap around her when she feels tears sting her eyes, aggressively swiping at them with the heels of her palms and the backs of her hands. His arms are tight; she knows he feels the ache she does, knows he feels the old sorrow like she does now. He presses his face into her hair, nose near crushed to her skull, and he holds her fiercely, as if afraid to let her slip out of his grasp.  
“There isn’t always a _reason_ for things, Rey. Sometimes...sometimes bad shit just happens because it _happens._ ” His words come out somewhat muffled but his fingers press into her skin and she digs her short nails into his arms, her eyes shut tightly.   
“That’s not--that’s a--that’s a _shit_ excuse, y’know…” She hiccups, angry and bitter and so, so sad. She sees it again, rippling between them alongside her own memories.   
The little boy with the big eyes and big ears and soft face, the thick curling hair that is so like his mother’s, the cold he feels so deep down in his bones it makes him shiver in his sleep. The shadows that lurk when he fights--too angry, too angry, too much fear and hate in him, Leia there is _too much_ \--the anger when his father leaves, again and again, the hurt tears when his mother sends him away. Rey clings to him as he clings to her, and they shake with anger and unshed tears and _hurt._

Kylo Ren’s fingers press into her skin hard enough to leave marks--her fingers dig into his arms almost to the point of drawing blood. Their chests heave with the effort of keeping everything in but then something snaps and Rey _howls_ . She screams into the bond, her toes curling, her knees tucking up and keeping his arms around her torso. For a moment he is in absolute awe of her, but then he follows suit--the two of them clutch one another and scream into their own link, letting the noise echo and fill the space all around them. In the end, when the noise stops, they are left huddled together, holding one another tightly and breathing hard, through gritted teeth and stinging, hot tears. It feels _good_ to release like this, feels good to scream and bellow and not be told to stop, not be reprimanded for the tears or the anguish or the _weakness_. Their muscles slowly relax and they breathe, in and out, over and over until their chests aren’t so tight and their jaws are no longer hitched to clench their teeth and they slide their grasp on one another to something gentler, something softer. Rey curls herself between his legs, cradles his head against hers as his forehead rests on her shoulder. His arms are still locked around her waist but she doesn’t care, lets him hold onto her, feels the warm wet on her shoulder and sliding down her chest and back and buries her face in his thick hair. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

He holds onto her, arms almost too-tight, keeping her to him desperately. She’s quiet, but she holds onto him in return, and when he feels her nose on his scalp and her hands gentle on his hair, he takes a shuddering breath and lets her draw everything out of him, unraveling under her touch. He thinks of the years he was berated for his tears, the fear he harbored, the uncertainty. The doubtful eyes of his uncle, the distant eyes of his father. Father--he’s done such terrible things but none, he thinks, so terrible as that. He thinks of his mother, the brief flash of her doubled over, a hand on her chest, and there is nothing to come back from that. Mother... _Mother…._   
He can see her in Rey’s eyes, now.   
She’s grown so old--her dark hair is growing silver, now, but her face is still strong, and she is still the beacon of leadership she has always been. He is so afraid to face her. So afraid to see himself in her eyes now, terrified of the revile he’ll be met with if he comes face to face with her again.

_She loves you so much, Ben._

Rey feels him go still in her arms. His fingers press into her side and into her stomach and it almost hurts but she feels everything raging in him and he needs to know.  
_She loves you so much--she misses you so much...She wants you to come home. I know she does._ Rey sees her nearly every day. Leia was there when she first came to the Resistance base, Leia was the only one who stopped, who saw her eyes and looked at her and _knew_ , and from that moment Rey knew she liked the General, knew she would do what she could if the older woman asked.   
Leia doesn’t have to ask, when it comes to this.   
Rey knows. Rey understands.

What Leia Organa cannot accept is that Ben Solo must be dead. Kylo Ren is the man in this body, the creature wearing Ben Solo’s face. Kylo Ren is the monster who devoured Leia Organa’s son, and now lives in his skin. In a way, perhaps it is easier to think of, this way. There is no blood on Ben Solo’s hands.  
Rey’s fingers curl into his hair and she feels her chest tighten.   
“Everyone’s done things they shouldn’t. Even good people--even good people do terrible things.” Her jaw tightens and she swallows some, holding onto him. “And they all have their reasons.”

For the first time, Kylo Ren senses things in Rey that make him pause. Not from fear, not from disgust, but from surprise--surprise that he never sensed this before, that he never knew this, never felt this from her before.  
Sand and blood, poison stink and beating sun. The grit of teeth and the panic of a terrified adrenaline rush. Hands on her, pulling her hair pulling her clothes--fists to her jaw her gut her back, a blade too quick and precise, not once, the sensations surround him and he knows this was never only once and his breath won’t come, he is stunned and murderously furious but trapped by a storm of her memories until there is something, a burst of energy and rage that he knows all too well, a surge of adrenaline that roars in an echo of Rey’s voice _I AM GOING TO SURVIVE_ and there is hurt and strain but slowly the assailing blows and hands and shadows are beaten back and Rey is there, Rey is bruised and bloodied and her lips are split her hair is shaggy her clothes are torn her bones are broken but she is _alive_ , she is alive, and they are--

Rey is still in his grasp now and Kylo Ren is breathing hard, holding her too tightly. Rey is quiet and unmoving, but she senses the anger in him and finally, slowly, cradles his head to her shoulder, her fingers only trembling slightly. In the desert, you _survive_ . There is no good or bad, there is only life and death, and the struggle to cling to one without falling prey to the other. He can’t douse all of his rage just now, he knows it and she knows it, but he settles for pulling her in close and finding every scar he can with his mouth.   
_Good people have their reasons._ Rey is quiet for a long moment.   
“Good people are ‘good people’ because other people think so.”

Something stirs in the Force eventually and draws them out of the hotel, hurrying for their ships. They leave, and there is a moment when they realize they are going separate ways, and Kylo Ren takes Rey’s wrist in the streams of people traveling through Coruscant. Their eyes meet and things are silent again for a breath.  
_Come with me._ His eyes are dark and burning and Rey wishes she could.   
_Come home._ Her eyes are bright and imploring and Ben wishes he could.   
They break, and are lost to the crowds.

There is a party waiting for Rey when she gets back to base. There’s a notable falter in her steps when she emerges from her ship to come face to face with a gathering group of familiar faces, but Finn is the one that comes up closer. He’s never shied away from her, never observed boundary with her, and in a way she’s glad for it--but this time he stays perhaps a foot or two back.  
“Rey--where’d you go? We’ve been looking for you--we couldn’t reach you on your comlink!” Rey blinks, a little lost for a moment. Oh kriff. Of course they’d be trying to contact her--she didn’t bring anything with her, left it all with her ship except her saberstaff.   
“I was...on Coruscant.” She breathes out, offering a usual sort of smile.   
“Coruscant?? Why did you go there--you went by yourself??” Finn seems concerned but Poe raises an eyebrow, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.   
“It’s a big place, and we’re not the only people in the galaxy she knows…” Rey looks grateful, nodding.   
“I was meeting...I was meeting someone to catch up. I haven’t seen them in a long time.”   
From their places at the back of the group, Luke and Leia look somewhat concerned about this answer, though in different ways. Finn looks puzzled.   
“Someone you haven’t seen in a long time?” Poe claps a hand on his arm, offering Rey a sympathetic smile.   
“Hey, she wasn’t the only person living on Jakku. Cut her some slack--right?” Rey smiles at them both.   
“Next time we can all go together. I can’t wait to go back, I want to explore more of it--it’s _enormous!_ ” And this is all it takes to break the ice with her friends before they’re all wandering off together again, leaving the Skywalker twins standing outside Rey’s ship.

Leia takes a breath, and Luke’s expression turns somewhat dark.  
“I’ve been right about this.” Leia swallows, unsure what to think.   
“We don’t--we don’t know anything for certain right now. It was still far away, it could have been anything--”   
“Leia I know what I felt. And if Snoke is the Force user we know him to be, then he felt it too.” Leia shuts her eyes, exhaling quietly.   
“...What will you do?” She asks this finally, resignedly. What is going on, what is happening now, right under their noses? What has Rey gotten herself into--but Leia knows she cannot lie to herself: her concern goes so far for Rey before it morphs into her concern for her son. Luke gazes at Rey’s ship for a long moment, taking a deep breath.   
“This has to stop. It’s far too dangerous, for either of them.”

Nothing seems changed aboard the Finalizer when Kylo Ren returns. No summons from Snoke, no snark from Hux. It’s eerily placid--Kylo Ren knows what they both sensed, the sudden stirring in the Force that suggested an oncoming storm...and yet, there is no trace of it here. Everything is quiet, and he retreats back to his quarters on the star destroyer without pause. Something is coming, but he doesn’t know what. Furiously, he walls himself off for the time being, venting the pent-up rage from his time with Rey and his new frustration with the stillness of things. His lightsaber is drawn and he is immediately tearing into the space around himself, thinking of all his shortcomings and all of his helplessness--he cannot place the unrest in the Force now, cannot figure out what is coming, and whatever it is, he is powerless to stop it if he can’t determine where it’s coming from. He is alone again, far from Rey, and he was unable to keep her protected all those years on Jakku. He thinks of the faceless hands and the phantom objects he felt on his skin in her memories, and roars into the empty metal chamber, saber slicing deep into the door latch console. It makes no difference; he doesn’t want to see anyone else right now, wants no other contact, no one else in this space. Rey. He wants Rey--and now she is lightyears away.

Three days pass. Nothing.

Seven days pass.   
Rey travels back to Coruscant with Finn, Poe, and Jessika. They drive two-seater speeders through a maze of traffic and shop--Rey has no idea where they are, how far from that hotel they are, but she doesn’t mind.

Eight days pass.  
Kylo Ren is sent to search the Outer Rim territories for a rebel spy. The chase ends after two days. The spy is dead. Kylo Ren waits to report.

Nine days pass.  
Rey travels offplanet briefly to go on a run for ship parts. She’s only gone a few hours, but when she returns, Luke is waiting.   
“You went offplanet again.” Quiet, observant, but too placid. Something lurks underneath and Rey feels disquieted by the look in his eyes.   
“I did, yeah.” She hefts her old leather pack on her arm some, withdraws the first thing she can get her fingers around, a somewhat battered magno-coupler. “Parts run.” Luke regards her silently for longer than Rey is comfortable with and she breaks the gaze first, busying herself with putting the part back in her bag.   
“Is that what you’ve been going out for recently?” Rey pauses.   
“What?”   
“You’ve been leaving the base often enough for people to notice lately--have you been out looking for parts then too?” Rey’s brow knits now and she frowns some.   
“I was under the impression that I’m allowed to come and go if I want.” Luke nods, making a vaguely open gesture at this.   
“You are.” Now she’s clearly irritated by this. She’s not a prisoner here--he has no reason to question her like this.   
“I’ll take an _escort_ next time, if you’re so worried about me.” It comes more tersely than she initially intends, but she doesn’t stick around to deal with any repercussions from him.

Ten days pass.  
Rey sneaks off D’Qar again--she groans at calling it ‘sneaking’, doesn’t like the implication. She is allowed to come and go as she likes, now, but this still feels...illicit. After all of the heaviness on the base recently and Luke’s questioning, though, this is a welcome escape.   
Honestly Rey is downright _elated_ to visit the oceanic planet finally--it was the first location they even talked about visiting like this, and after everything, she’s brimming with excitement at the prospect of seeing Kylo Ren again, certainly, but Mon Calamari…

The blue planet pops into view when she pulls out of hyperspace and Rey’s breath is gone.  
“Oh…” She breathes out finally, the only sound in her ship as she sends a clearance request. It’s _beautiful_. The swirling blues and whites from offplanet are breathtaking, and Rey can’t wait to touch down and see the deep ocean up close.

Kylo Ren waits for her again--he’s felt troubled recently; it seems as if the Order has been amping up their attacks in the past week or two, and he’s not sure why. Nothing else seems irregular, but even this assignment to track down a spy is irregularly aggressive for him to be sent out. Still...he has this opportunity now, and he wants her, he wants Rey, he wants to see her again, desperately. Every minute he’s not with her anymore feels like an eternity and it vexes him to the point of walling himself off so she won’t sense his fits--in the past, if he’s seen someone he felt any manner of desire towards, it was best to just...have it done with. The others were just passing thoughts that he could fuck out of his system but Rey...Rey was different. He craved her now, more than before, more than anyone or anything else.

When she arrives, touching down near him on a small, remote island, there is a noticeable skip in his step as he hurries to meet her. The island is just one in a chain of them, little white sand stones in a deep blue sea, the blue tides of the Mon Cala ocean lapping at the shoreline. Rey emerges and squints in the bright sunlight, the seabreeze tousling her loose hairs and making her smile. Kylo Ren is breathless for a moment, watching her--she belongs in the bright light like this, belongs in the warm sun.  
And then she turns to look at him.

Almost immediately the distance between them is closed. They don’t know who moved first, how quickly this happened, what even spurred it--but where they once were a few yards apart, now they are face to face and inches from bodies touching for a split-second until Kylo Ren adjusts this and takes Rey’s face in his hands, their skin singing with the return of contact like this. Rey lets out a breathless laugh; lifts her hands to rest on his and just _smiles_ , and he knows she feels his heart hammer in his chest because of it. Rey smiles and takes his hands from her face so she can link their fingers, pressing their palms together.   
“So, are we going for a swim?”

Kylo Ren is prepared for a swim, more or less. He sheds his loose outer layers and stands finally in his pants and boots, a fitted shirt still on him in a way Rey refers to as ‘plastered on’. His clothing is settled nearby in one place for later and he takes a moment to tie his hair back from his face, but Rey is different. Rey is a hurricane of movement; the moment he even looks at the water, she’s kicking off her boots and hucking her clothes off to throw them towards the ramp of her ship--he has to stop her hurriedly when she gets down to her--  
“You--you’re wearing underwear.” His face is somewhat pink and Rey cocks her head a little, glancing down.   
“Well you said we were meeting here, so I thought it might be practical.” He blinks, trying to ignore the fact that he _feels_ his ears turning red. She’s standing in the sand in a pair of standard white underwear and an old white shirt he’s seen her working on her ship in; sleeveless and baring her contoured stomach. The pale fabric makes her look even darker tan in the sunlight, and he’s not entirely sure why, but he’s particularly struck by how she looks right then.   
“So you’re...swimming in this.” She wrinkles her nose.   
“Better than you--you’re still dressed!” He makes a scoffing sort of noise.   
“There’s nothing wrong with this.” Rey rolls her eyes, though, tromping through the sand down to the water.   
“At _least_ take the boots off!”   
He does.

When he comes to stand beside her again (barefoot, which brings on a nostalgic sort of feeling in the sand like this that he swallows down) she glances over at him, grinning cheekily.  
“Don’t know what you’re getting all bothered for. You’ve seen more of me than this.” He groans some at how much passes between the bond sometimes. She’s right, though.   
“True.” He glances sidelong at her now, eyes traveling over her appraisingly. “You don’t mind, though.” Rey’s grin just widens at this.   
“True.”

She wades a few feet into the water--it’s warmer than she thought it would be!--and lets the tide wash around her calves for a bit. The sun makes the water sparkle, and the sound of far-off animal calls mixed with the muted rush of the planet’s vast ocean is oddly calming. Rey shuts her eyes, smiling and feeling the sun, the breeze, the water, and she feels bliss. This is what she’s dreamed of, a warm summer sea, wind and water that don’t beat or freeze but gently rock and lull. Kylo Ren’s voice brings her thoughts back to the present, however.  
“You do know how to swim, right?” Rey turns her head to look back at him.   
“I’m told I’m a natural,” she grins, thinking of the very impromptu lesson she got from tripping into a lake on Ahch-To while training, and then the times she was coaxed into a river trip by other Resistance members on D’Qar. Swimming is a _leisurely_ activity--she likes it, likes feeling weightless and fluid and made of grace in the water. She’s not a perfect swimmer yet, she hasn’t had enough practice yet, but she loves to retreat to the lakes on D’Qar to go and float and meditate. Kylo watches her smile and sighs some, deciding to not worry about this. She might not be the strongest swimmer, but he trusts in his own skill. Well, if the need should arise, that is.

They don’t venture out terribly far. Rey is content to paddle around the warm water and the furthest she dives is down to some of the shallow reefs, chasing larger fish and trying to collect shells from the sea floor. Kylo Ren watches her from close by, makes sure she doesn’t grab anything poisonous or stay underwater too long--impressively, he can tell when she’s starting to need air via the bond, and she’s managed to figure out how to swim a little deeper and a little faster just the same way. She starts getting excited about this, though, and for a good hour they race through the water until Rey is a little winded and then settles for taking a break.  
Kylo discovers Rey is a tireless swimmer. She might still need to figure out some of the finer points of all of it but it certainly doesn’t stop her from anything or from enjoying herself. After a few hours pass and he’s settled on the shore again in a spot of shade, Rey is out in the water with a cloth bag, breaking the surface for air every few moments or so before disappearing again. He’d be worried, but it’s like clockwork--she vanishes underwater, and after about 45 seconds pops up again with a heavy gasp before ducking under all over again. He watches her do this, amused and...and _relaxed._ It’s a strange concept to him, sitting here like this, out in the open, half-dressed and soaking wet, watching Rey swim; it’s nothing he’s ever thought would happen, and certainly not like this. He wonders, silently, how long this will last.

Rey comes trudging out of the water after a time--her bag is bloated with water that’s still filtering out and trailing behind her as she hurries up over the sand to flop down next to him, spraying sand over both of them and grinning broadly. He jerks a bit at the sudden intrusion but her joy is infectious and he stays put, watching her open up the sack and let the remainder of the water out, turning it upside-down to pour the contents onto the ground. Shells, pieces of multicolored coral--but mostly Dac oysters, large and sharp and jagged. He showed her one earlier in the day that had been broken open on the seafloor, showed her where the meat had been and the outline of the pearls that had been inside. That’s what she’s been doing? Collecting oysters? He raises an eyebrow at the pile of shells and then at her.  
“Are you hungry?” She blinks, though, staring down at the pile she’s collected in amazement.   
“Hungry? Wait--you can _eat_ these??” He looks perplexed for a moment.   
“Yes--why did you collect them if you don’t want to eat them??” Rey looks back up at him like this is obvious.   
“I wanted to see what ‘pearls’ look like. There’s got to be some in one of these, right?” He stares at her for a beat.   
“You’ve been down there for at least an hour doing this because you wanted to see a pearl?” She makes a face, her mouth scrunching up in the way it does when she realizes she’s done something ‘normal’ people wouldn’t do, and she looks down--and he immediately backtracks. “There have to be fifty oysters here, you’ll see plenty if you break them open.” Rey looks back up at him now.   
“How can I do that, do you just...smash them?” He shakes his head, snorting.   
“No, you have to…” he picks one up, looking momentarily for the lip of it. “The line here, it’s an opening. You just pop it open, usually with--” But Rey’s already on her feet going for her ship, and comes back a minute later with a small, thin, utility blade, brandishing it curiously.   
“Something like this?” He nods, not surprised she’d have this.   
“Mm.” He hands her the shell, watches her focus on it, finding the seam and feeling around before suddenly in one quick movement, she’s slid her blade into the thing and popped the joint of it apart. She’s practiced at this sort of thing, he knows, but it’s still impressive. Rey examines the creature’s insides a moment before pulling the shell apart totally.   
“So wait...what can I eat?” She asks this as she’s watching the mucous-like insides of the thing spread between the shells, some seawater pouring out from it, and Kylo Ren watches her do this with a bizarre fascination on his face before answering.   
“Ideally you’d want to clean these things first, but I’m sure one of them won’t kill you.” Her brow shoots up.   
“They can kriffing _kill_ you??” He shrugs.   
“Bacteria and such. People clean them off--but these look fine. You’ve got a medbay on the base as it is, I’m assuming.” Rey makes a face at him.   
“Of course we do.” She turns back to the shellfish, though. “So really, what can I eat?” He gestures,   
“Most of this. If you cut it out and eat it like this it’s good. There might be pearls underneath--” Rey is already scraping the meat out with her blade and slurping it down. She’s fearless, makes a strange face when she has the gooey stuff in her mouth, but chews and swallows and looks thoughtful.   
“That was...weird.” He snickers some.   
“People with credits to lose pay to have these imported just so they can eat them like this.” Rey snorts.   
“People with credits to lose seem to do a lot of weird shit.” He laughs at this, and Rey peers at the shell.   
“So...no pearls in this one?” He takes the halves from her and shrugs.   
“Looks like no.”

They’re about thirty oysters in by the time Kylo Ren finds himself wondering how he got to this point. He’s eaten more of these things than he thinks he’s possibly eaten in his life, Rey’s nicked three fingers, but they _have_ found a small collection of pearls. Rey is _fascinated_ by them--they’re not all uniformly spherical, and some of them have a different sort of hue to them; bluish, pinkish, yellowish, whitish, but she loves them.   
“How do these things...how do they happen? Pearls? Is it like an egg?” Kylo shakes his head, popping a small bluish pearl off of a shell and into her little collection of them.   
“No. It’s…” He struggles to remember for a moment. “It’s...sand.” Rey looks awed.   
“Sand?”   
“Sand.” There is a memory of his that Rey taps into--another from childhood, she wonders why he is always so young when she sees him--and she goes quiet, watching.

_Leia...she’s so young, her face is smooth and round, and her eyes are still just as bright. She’s settling a necklace around her throat, looking in the mirror as Ben watches her, slowly approaching her vanity._   
_“Does this mean you’re going to the Senate again, mama?”_   
_Leia turns to look down at him and Rey’s throat tightens at how much_ **_love_ ** _she feels in his memory, for her and from her. Leia nods, reaching her slender hands to smooth down unruly curls._   
_“Yes it does. How did you know?”_   
_“You wear those when you go.” Leia Organa laughs, and leans down to kiss Ben’s forehead._ _  
“You’re my clever little prince, you know that?”_

Rey feels so strange coming back from this, but Kylo Ren just looks distant, almost wistful despite the dark sadness in his eyes.

“She told me she wore them because of what they symbolized. That even great stress and grit can produce something beautiful. She said that was what she believed in, what the Rebellion believed in. The hope that there would be something beautiful coming out of it all. My mother…”

Rey doesn’t know what to say, she feels choked but proud, and still so, so sad. She settles for what she does know. She reaches a hand out to him, and brings his face close to hers, pressing their foreheads together and breathing with him. Just centering, merging, flowing together; their breathing steadies and a calm settles over the both of them. He speaks up after a moment.  
“I think they fit you perfectly.” Rey blinks, meeting his eyes.   
“What?”   
“Something beautiful coming out of all that sand and struggle and work.” He means this to be poignant, and she knows he does, but Rey just laughs happily, her pleasure at this remark spreading rapidly until he can only laugh too, resting a hand on the back of her neck and enjoying the sound of her laughter, the joy seeping into both of them. For right now, he’s happy, and she’s happy, and they’re both together here.   
“I don’t know if I can eat anymore of these kriffing oysters.”

The sun dips down, turns the water indigo and streaks it with gold on the horizon. Rey’s made them a little fire--nothing too big, nothing to attract attention, just enough to provide some light and some warmth while they’re still sitting on the beach. Kylo Ren watches as she weaves a little knot around a few of the pearls they found; she had a bit of twine on her ship and has been showing him how to weave this little basket of string. This is...peaceful. The firelight reflects off Rey’s face and dances in her eyes, and she smiles and laughs and talks in a low voice that she uses when she is concentrating on something.  
She finishes the series of knots, and hands the strange hanging charm to him.   
“Here.” He raises an eyebrow, looking at the thing in his palm. It’s nothing he could see himself keeping on him anywhere visible.   
“What if I don’t wear this?” She snorts, rolling her eyes.   
“Oh do whatever with it, then.” He leans over her some, grinning.   
“What if I throw it into the ocean?” Rey squints at him.   
“That would be really fucking rude.” His brow goes up.   
“I should throw it out on principle, just for that language--” Rey reaches up quick as lightning and grabs two handfuls of his hair, pulling him down into a kiss, and he forgets about throwing the charm away.

She might have caught him off guard, but he gets her on her back in the sand in no time--luckily they’re both dry by now. Her shirt is rucked up around her chest and his leg shifts between her knees and Rey raises an eyebrow when they break, breathing hard.  
“Out here in the open?” Kylo Ren smirks down at her, slipping a hand under her shirt to tweak one of her nipples, enjoying her shuddering under him when he does.   
“Don’t tell me you think we’ll get caught…” One of her hands travels to his waistline and she curls her fingers into a fistful of his hair with the other.   
“Cocky bastard…” But it’s a halfhearted grumble at best, and he knows it too.

Her panties wind up around her thighs and his pants are pushed down over his hips, and the sand is getting _everywhere_ , but they’re pressing on despite the mild discomfort. They want this, both of them, just as they did before, just as they do any time they have a moment of intimacy. Rey groans, arching her back as Kylo settles back on his haunches and tugs her panties away before pulling her hips up to meet his. Their eyes meet as he rocks up against her, slicking his cock with her arousal and watching the color rise in her face as she watches their bodies meet.   
“You want this?” His voice is husky with need and Rey squeezes her thighs around him, grinding against him insistently.   
“ _Yes_ ,” she breathes out, baring her teeth at him. “You know I do.”   
_Missed you, missed your body, missed your skin on mine, you know I want this, you know I want you--_ _  
_ They aren’t sure who’s thoughts are whose, and it doesn’t matter, and everything is perfect as he leans over her, positions their hips just right, feels her hands go for his back, fingers pressing into his skin.

And then something is very, very wrong.

They both seem to jolt into reality abruptly, tearing away from one another and scrambling to their feet. Kylo Ren looks around under a knit brow as Rey finds her clothing, pulling her pants on and coming back over to him. They both look worried, adrenaline kicking in.  
“What is it--what is that--” He looks furious, shaking his head.   
“It’s--they shouldn’t be here, this wasn’t one of the marks--” Rey looks stunned, her face angry and confused.   
“ _Marks_??” He looks enraged, but he doesn’t have the time to explain--there is an explosion off in the distance, lighting up the night sky. Rey gasps, and Kylo Ren summons his lightsaber to his hand.   
“No!” Rey looks furious, summoning her staff to her hands and stepping back from him.   
“It’s the First Order--why are they here, why are they doing this?!” He rounds on her some, stepping towards her.   
“This shouldn’t be happening, I don’t know why they’re here, but this wasn’t supposed to be one of their attacks!” Another explosion goes off behind Rey, lighting up Kylo Ren’s face. She sees the confusion, she knows he’s telling her the truth--but...but _why_ …

The sounds of TIE fighters screaming through the atmosphere. Rey’s head flicks upwards on instinct, knowing that sound. They streak across the sky overhead, and she doesn’t know what to do. Does the Resistance know--are the squadrons on their way??  
“Rey--Rey you have to get out of here--”   
“Did you really not know about this?? Why would they attack this planet--why _here_ , why _now_?!” He looks at her desperately, shaking his head.   
“I didn’t know, Rey, believe me I didn’t know--”

Another ship sound, but this one is _landing_. Their two weapons ignite immediately and they round on the approaching X-Wing--and Rey’s heart drops. Oh _no_.

Kylo Ren goes still. He knows this ship, he knows who is on it. His saber goes up and he turns to Rey now, fury in his eyes.  
“ _WHY IS HE HERE?!_ ” Rey glares back, but she can’t hide the panic on her face.   
“I don’t know! I didn’t call him, he didn’t know anything about this--”

Luke Skywalker emerges from the X-Wing, hopping to his feet in the sand, his lightsaber out and ignited, burning blue in the night. The wind is picking up, and the surf is getting wilder, and Rey knows there is no hiding anything, not anymore.

His face is a mask of anger and accusation, and Rey feels herself go cold.  
“This is where you’ve been going, all this time--Rey, what are you _doing_?!” He waves his lightsaber in their direction. “All of the anger I’ve felt in you, all of the darkness--it’s all from _him_!” Kylo Ren shifts slightly on his feet, moving in front of Rey, his saber held aloft. Rey feels anxiety hitting her like she’s never felt before--what does she do, what does she say? What will fix this, what has she done--she feels fear and stress like she did on Dagobah, like she did in the cave...   
“REY!” It’s jarringly similar to her vision in the cave, and Rey starts to shake, remembering what came next. Kylo Ren turns to her when he feels this shift in her energy, alarmed, his anger forgotten.   
“Rey--Rey, what--” the Force hits him and knocks him back from her, tumbling back into the sand. Luke advances on them both now, the wind whipping at his cloak.   
“You stay away from her!” He roars, pointing his saber at him accusingly. “I wanted to forgive you, Ben--your mother wants you home, she believes there is good in you, but this--you won’t turn this girl like Snoke turned you!” Rey is frozen, turning to Kylo Ren with wide eyes. Is that...is that what this has been? But…

Kylo Ren is snarling, getting to his feet and swinging his saber furiously.  
“Don’t you speak of her to me--you show your face here now like this--” Another explosion goes off over the horizon and they all three turn to look at the smoke rising into the air.   
“We have--we have to do something--” Rey feels dizzy and uncertain, she doesn’t know what to do or say now but this attack needs to be stopped--Kylo Ren reaches for her and Luke lunges at him, and the two men meet blades. Rey shouts in alarm, but Kylo yells back.   
“Go, Rey! Get out of here, go--”   
“Don’t speak to her! You won’t be near her _again_!” Luke slashes at his nephew and Kylo Ren blocks him, beating at his blows savagely, though it’s clear he’s distracted in this fight. Rey is breathing quickly, her heart pounding in her chest, and finally she rushes at the both of them with her staff, intending to stop them, but Luke reaches out and freezes her in place--just as his nephew did so many months ago. Seeing the old master do this is different, however, and Kylo roars at him, advancing on his uncle more violently now.   
“ _Don’t touch her_!” He bellows, knocking the saber from Luke’s hand, “ _Rey is mine!_ ” But suddenly disarmed and tiring of their back-and-forth, Luke sends Kylo Ren skidding back into the ocean--then turns to Rey’s frozen form and renders her unconscious, her body crumpling to the white sand. He lifts her over his shoulder and hefts her staff with him, carrying her to his X-Wing as quickly as he can--it’s cramped quarters with her in the ship as well, but he won’t leave her here anyway.

Kylo Ren is on his feet again and rushing after them, but Luke ensures he can’t reach them in time. He doesn’t give his nephew so much as a backward glance, and Kylo doesn’t bother shouting for Rey, he knows she’s out cold, he feels her energy suppressed and feels her curling in on herself in self-preservation. He feels burning rage, meanwhile, watching the X-Wing buzz to life and then lift off from the island.

Rey--his Rey, his bond partner, and now his uncle knows she’s been visiting him, now he knows they’ve been together.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp...here we go.  
> a lot of things going on in this chapter. i've actually been hella meaning to write them at the beach/an ocean setting and this chapter i got around to it as a birthday present to myself, lmao
> 
> things are kicking off from here--there's going to be a lot happening in the next few chapters, so buckle up folks.  
> as always, thank you all so much for reading, thank you for sticking with the story and thank all of you for your kind comments!! you're all amazing, and i hope you stay with me until the end!


	17. Blaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation.  
> Confusion. Distrust. A storm approaches.

Rey wakes sometime later, and she is in the hut on Ahch-To again.  
When she realizes it, she curls in on herself on the cot she slept on for weeks, training here with Luke, and she tentatively reaches out into the Force, feeling for something, anything--there--oh, just there...she feels Kylo Ren across lightyears and star systems, and for the time being, she leaves things be.

Luke is somewhere nearby, she can sense it. She remembers the whipping wind, the green glow of his lightsaber, the rage in his eyes, and she knows there is no hiding from this, there is no escape now. She takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself--she is alone here, and she has to face all of this alone.  
When she emerges, the cliffside is silent. The wind whistles over the rocks, and she wraps the blanket from the cot around her shoulders, slowly making her way along the path through the other huts and the stone rubble until she finds Luke, sitting on a jutting of stone near the same place she came across him for the first time. She knows he senses her approaching. She says nothing, still trying to gather her nerve for this, but does step closer.

“We need to have a talk, Rey.”

She freezes at the sudden sound of his voice, takes a deep breath, but nods a little to herself and walks the few steps forward to stand next to where he’s sitting, looking out at the ocean.  
“Yes, master.”  
Luke sighs heavily, staring hard out at the horizon.  
“How long has this been going on, Rey?” Rey shuts her eyes for a moment, swallowing some. There is no point in lying now.  
“...A while. A few months.” Silence. Rey wets her lips some, tries to remain calm.  
“Does Leia know?” Rey shakes her head mutely.  
“No. No one else knows.”  
“Are you so sure of--”  
“--I trust him, Luke.”

Another silence now. Luke looks strangely unreadable, and Rey holds her ground. She...she _does_ trust Kylo Ren, she’s just...a great deal has happened in the past few weeks, and now…  
“...You trust him…” He sounds gruff, and somewhat disbelieving.  
“I do. I...I know him, Luke, I _know_ him.” Luke glances up at her now, calculating and questioning.  
“You have a Force bond, don’t you.” It isn’t a question so much as it is an accusation--this, in his words, does not sound like a good thing. Rey’s brow knits slightly and she nods finally, somewhat stiffly.  
“Yes.” Luke’s expression darkens again.  
“How long?” Rey turns to look out at the ocean again.  
“I don’t know--”  
“-- _How long, Rey?_ ”

She is silent now, and realizes she has to think about this. How long...she’s known for months now, but before that…  
Before that, she hardly paid attention, and yet she feels as if she knew, feels as if she could sense him at the back of her mind, always there, always lurking…  
“Since Starkiller.” She breathes out finally, and shuts her eyes. “Since I...since I got into his head.”

There is a charged silence between them now, and Rey breathes, tries to steady her heart. Luke is pensive, there is a great deal on his mind just now and Rey feels it, the turmoil in him, the uncertainty about this situation.  
“I knew this had to be what was happening, months ago. When you asked me about Revan and Bastila Shan, I knew. Their situation may have been somewhat different, but…” Luke takes a deep breath, and Rey turns to look at him now. “...A Force bond. This is...oh Rey…” He shakes his head some in dismay, but Rey looks somewhat indignant about this.  
“I don’t understand. I don’t understand why it’s a bad thing--I know...I know it’s him, I know that it’s...Kylo Ren...but I…” He turns to look up at her, his eyes asking for an explanation, and Rey closes her own, thinking about it, about the bond, about everything.

“I’ve never felt so powerful. Like...like I _become_ the Force, like I’m not myself, and not him, like we’ve created an entire universe between the two of us. I can feel the Force, I can feel all of the energy in the galaxy, it feels like.” She exhales slowly, softly, “And I...I’m never alone. Neither one of us--we’re never alone.”  
_Never, Rey, never--you will_ **_never_ ** _be alone that way again._ She remembers his voice and it feels so long ago now; the fallen walker on Jakku, his hands holding onto hers and his mouth nearly close enough…  
Luke’s voice is quiet.  
“And he is there with you, all the time?” Rey pauses.  
“...Sort of. It’s like...it’s like we’re both with one another, and just...muting each other.” His brow knits.  
“Even right now?” Rey shakes her head, reaching out gently into the bond--but she’s met with a soft barrier.  
“He’s...I don’t know.” She looks down somewhat worriedly. “I don’t...I don’t think he’s alone right now.”

Luke looks skeptical.  
“He only contacts you when he’s alone…?” But Rey shakes her head.  
“No. But this means...this means that _he_ must be there.” The name in her head. _Snoke._ This is when Kylo doesn’t let her in, when he doesn’t reach for her. That overbearing, freezing, terrifying presence. Luke seems to understand who she means.  
“Snoke.” Rey nods, shutting her eyes again.  
“He’s...he’s like a void, Luke. I’ve never...I’ve never felt _darkness_ like that before. Like I’m drowning and the water is pure ice...that kind of dark, I don’t know, I…” She shudders, thinking of Kylo Ren there with him, and in the bond she rests her hands, warm and firm, on the barrier between them. “It’s like the Force is warped around him.” Luke looks stunned.  
“You’ve felt his presence that closely?” Rey’s eyes flash open.  
“Just once or twice--Kylo doesn’t--he doesn’t….” She shakes her head. “We don’t...take those kinds of risks.” Luke looks calculating.  
“What do you mean?”  
“He keeps me out. If Snoke is close or if he feels him probing, he keeps me out.” She gives Luke a pointed sort of look, “Snoke doesn’t know about the bond. Kylo keeps it hidden from him.” _Keeps_ **_me_ ** _hidden from him_ , she thinks, and her expression dares Luke to challenge her on this. He still looks doubtful, however.  
“How do you _know_ this, Rey?” She scowls at him.  
“Because I trust him! Because I _know_ him--because when we drift together, I _am_ him, and he is me, and I...we can sense _everything_ . I can see his memories, his dreams, I can feel his emotions and his thoughts and I _know!_ ”

Luke is left in awe for a moment, and Rey takes a deep breath and steps back, waiting. Finally,  
“You both feel all of this...and you feel one with the Force?”  
Rey nods, exhaling.  
“It’s...it’s unimaginable. Like nothing else I’ve ever felt--like I can feel _everything_ , like I could do _anything_. When we’re together, it’s like...it’s like nothing else matters. Like we’re the only things in the universe, like we control everything.” Luke thinks about this a long moment.

“Rey...Rey, are you in love with him?”

Rey’s breath completely flees her lungs, and she thinks her heart may have stopped for a moment.  
“I--I--what--” She sputters, face mottling red, “I never--I don’t--we’re--” Oh no, that’s not something she was prepared for. Luke’s brow is up and Rey’s thoughts are a jumble. Love--she doesn’t even think she knows what that means. What would it feel like, she wonders, and would she even recognize it? She doesn’t think she would.  
She sobers at this thought.

“I don’t think I am.” She says finally, her blush fading. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Luke watches her intently for a long moment, and then turns back to look out at the sea.  
“If he...reaches out to you...then I want you to tell me. I think we should meditate.”

They sit, Luke in front of Rey, a small pyramid of stones between them. Rey tries to settle, tries to center herself, but she can’t feel Kylo still, and she wonders if something is wrong. It’s been too long, has Snoke figured things out? If he does...then what will happen after that? What will they do? Kylo told her before, he couldn’t stop Snoke alone if it came down to it, and Rey wonders...is she strong enough yet to really be of help?

Luke is breathing deep and settling in to meditate. He always seems to be perfectly ready to dive into the Force, and Rey wishes she felt so prepared. She shuts her eyes, breathes in. Tries to center.

There is so much on her mind.  
Is everything all right, wherever Kylo is? What if he tries to contact her, does she tell Luke? If she does, what will he do? Kylo will be upset with all of this, she knows. And what has Luke told _Leia_ about this? Does she know? Oh...she’ll be so upset that Rey never told her--and Rey doesn’t blame her, how could she? She should have said something, she should have told her, at least Leia of all people, the older woman hasn’t ever been cruel to her, in fact she’s only ever been welcoming and even moth--  
“Rey, clear your mind.”  
She opens her eyes and finds Luke’s gaze fixed on her. She swallows some and nods, sighing.  
“Right, yes…”  
“You know how to meditate, don’t you Rey?”  
“Yes, I--of course I do, we’ve worked on this for a year now!” She looks somewhat chafed by this question.  
“I ask because I’m beginning to wonder just what you’ve actually taken from my teachings...”  
“Wha--how can you ask me that?!”  
“Well, for starters I did advise you to be wary of my nephew--”  
“That--I--”  
“--And I recall lessons about fear, anger, and possession…”  
“What--I’m not angry--!” But it comes out in an aggravated tone, and she cuts herself off, lips screwing up some at her misstep. Luke just gives her a deadpan look, taking a deep breath and sighing.  
“You are, though. And you’re afraid--we could have talked about this before, Rey.” Rey looks troubled, however.  
“I just...don’t understand. Whenever I use my emotions, I feel stronger. Not really...out of control...but I feel more powerful. I mean...I don’t get it. Why do we have emotions like this if we’re supposed to just...smother them?” Luke’s eyes are softer now than she thinks she’s ever seen them.  
“I remember asking questions like that when I was your age. Literally about the exact same age as you, you know.” Rey blinks.  
“I don’t actually know exactly how old I am--”  
“ _Around_ your age, then.” She bites the inside of her mouth a little.  
“Who did you talk to?”  
“Master Yoda.”

Yoda. The name resonates when Rey hears it, and she hears strange echoes at the thought. She knows ‘Yoda’, she knows the name, knows--  
“The Jedi Master. He trained you on Dagobah.” Luke nods.  
“I told you some about him when we were there.” Rey shuts her eyes, thinking back, reaching into the Force.  
“He was...wise. Very old--but didn’t always give you the answers you needed.” Luke watches her, nodding.  
“But he did teach me a great deal.”  
“But he didn’t prepare you for everything. He didn’t prepare you the way you needed to be for--” She goes still. “For Vader.” It comes out as a whisper, and she sits straighter, delving further into the Force. _Show me, show me, I want to know…_ She wills the information to come to her, opens herself to all of it.

 _Rey knows this hallway. She knows the distant echoes of lightsaber battle, and this time she runs towards it, instead of the phantoms at the other end of the hall. The world shifts and she is there, watching them cross blades, the light playing off of a cold black mask. The artificial breath resounds in her own chest and she breathes like the Sith Lord, but feels her heart pound like Luke’s. He’s so young, and there is determination on his face but fear in his eyes. He was not ready for this, wants to face the challenge and come out stronger, prove himself worthy, but this is so much more than he expected--the world shifts again, and there is wind and echoes, the combatants stand on a ledge and Rey’s breath hitches at the reminder of Han Solo’s final steps. This is different, Luke clings to the bridge and there is pain and fear on his face and he fears he has lost, but Vader does not advance. He reaches out, and Rey squints against the rushing air to see everything, to make sense of it._  
_“Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father…” She knows this name too, ‘Obi-Wan’. It makes her body shudder involuntarily, makes her remember things too quick and then they are gone again. Luke was shouting and she nearly misses it all._  
_“--You killed him!” Her brow knits at this. No, that isn’t right…_ _  
“No, I am your father!” Rey blinks, takes a breath. She knew this, though. She knew, she has known for a long time--but Luke didn’t know...why would Obi-Wan…_

Luke’s agonizing scream makes her jar out of the vision and she breathes deep in realtime, shaking her head to clear it and blinking her eyes open. Luke watches her silently, letting her focus again.  
“You didn’t know, and then…”  
“...and then, I knew suddenly. I knew many things, after that battle, and it took me some time to understand all of them.” Rey looks at him questioningly.  
“I don’t understand.” He nods.  
“It was complicated. I was supposed to be this hero, then. I was supposed to fight the Empire, to defeat the Emperor. To kill Darth Vader.” Rey swallows, and her chest feels tight. She understands this.  
“You didn’t, in the end.” He nods.  
“No. In the end, I didn’t.” Rey almost wants to stay silent, but she can’t.  
“Why?” Luke is quiet for a long moment.  
“Because he was my father. Because I sensed the Light in him still.”

They can meditate some after this. Rey tries to reach in and sense what it is she’s supposed to do, drifts in the Force and asks for information, for help. Some kind of direction--there’s no answer. But something else does come through.

 _Rey?? Rey--Rey?_ _  
_

She jolts physically at the sudden voice, and immediately reaches for him.  
_I’m here! I’m here--I’m fine--what happened, where have you been?!_  
_Where are you?? Where are you, what happened, is he still there with you?!_ He sounds as angry as Rey figured he would. She takes a breath.  
_We’re...we’re both still together, yeah. I’m okay, really. You kept me out for a long time, what’s going on?_ He recoils some at this, she feels it.  
_Does he know?_ Rey takes a deep breath, swallows.  
_Yeah. He said...he said he figured it out a long time ago, but now…_ Rey feels Kylo Ren’s fury in her bones, and it makes her want to move. She stays still. _He’s upset, but--there’s nothing he can do. We’re meditating now, he told me to tell him if you contacted me again._ Rey can sense him freeze up, and then he’s visiting her.  
_Where are you. What is he telling you--_ He leans in to look at her face more closely, and Rey sees that he’s the one who looks worse for wear. Her eyes widen slightly, taking in his appearance and barely hearing him as he continues. _What has he done to you??_  
_Kylo...what’s going on? You look awful--_  
_Don’t worry about me._  
_Are you kidding me? You look terrible--and I know Snoke’s been with you for hours now; what is going on there?!_ He stands straight again, and rakes a hand through his hair, taking a breath in through his nose. His eyes look wild and there’s a pallor about him that isn’t normal. He looks sick, or worse--  
_I wanted answers about the attacks lately. Like the one on Mon Cala. I told you, Rey, I didn’t know about any of that._ Rey’s brow knits now.  
_And? What did you find out?_ He growls, pacing in a small circle.  
_You understand that my telling you would be treason._ Rey’s eyes narrow.  
**_You_ ** _understand that my being with you at_ **_all_ ** _is treason, right?_ He rounds on her and throws his hands up.  
_You don’t understand these people, Rey--this is so much bigger than your Resistance--_  
_Your_ **_mother’s_ ** _Resistance! The galaxy’s Resistance! You keep secrets from me, and then this shit happens and you get angry that I don’t understand--_  
_This is not like that! This is different, this is something that could fucking_ **_kill_ ** _you, Rey! They would, too--_  
The sudden shift in energy makes Luke open his eyes to look at Rey, and he sees her fists clenched.

“Rey…” Both of them freeze in the bond, and slowly Kylo turns to look at his uncle, even though he’s not visible to him.  
_What in the fucking hell--_  
_Kriff--shut up--shut up let me just--_  
“Rey, you’re talking to him now, aren’t you?” Rey pauses, and Kylo gives her a murderous look.  
“...Yes.” Kylo rages in the bond but Rey mutes it for the moment, trying to deal with the present situation.  
“It’s making you angry. What’s going on?” Rey takes a deep breath.  
“It’s--he’s frustrated, and I’m…” She exhales loudly, her fingers curling into irritated claws. _Stop it! Stop it for five kriffing minutes! Let me deal with this!_ He points at her accusingly in the bond.  
_He’s turning you against me, that’s what this is!_ Rey makes a face at him.  
_That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, stop being a child!_ His hand forms a fist and he makes an angry noise, but Rey ignores it.  
“I’m just--just trying to be calm right now. But something’s wrong, and I just...I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.” Luke looks confused.  
“What do you mean?” Rey shakes her head.  
“The recent attacks--the one on Mon Cala, the other ones, I’m just...I’m trying to get answers--”  
“He knew about those, Rey, he works with them--”  
“No!” She shouts now, and it is half her own voice and half Kylo Ren. Rey takes control, however. “No--he didn’t, he didn’t know about all of them, he didn’t know about the one on Mon Cala! Something is going on, he’s trying to find out what it is!”

Kylo Ren and Luke are both a bit surprised at her reaction here, and back down some. Luke watches her with some amount of wariness, but lets her speak.  
“He didn’t know. He was trying to get answers, that’s why he had me blocked out earlier…” Stiffly, Kylo nods in the bond, even if he eyes Rey and Luke warily. His uncle has reasons for everything he does, he knows this. And now he’s got Rey--he remembers Luke’s words on the island: “ _You won’t be near her again!”_  
Rey is his. They are connected to one another by the Force itself, their destinies are intertwined by the living _Force_ \--his uncle in all of his wizened glory can’t change that.

Luke looks at Rey suspiciously.  
“And he told you that himself, did he?” Rey frowns.  
“Yes.” Luke shakes his head, letting out a frustrated sigh.  
“Rey, of course he would tell you something like that--he wants you to trust him! Anyone like that wouldn’t tell you anything you didn’t want to hear.” Rey’s mouth is open and Kylo Ren is hurling insults in the bond.  
“He--he isn’t lying to me!” But Luke advances on her some.  
“Why do you believe that, Rey? Because he’s told you so?”  
“Because I can sense it!”  
“You think people can’t convince themselves that what they’re saying is true, even for a few moments?” Rey looks horrified.  
“You’re trying to tell me he’s _tricking_ me somehow??” She finally has to block Kylo for a time when he roars murderously at Luke, loud enough to drown out the other sounds in her ears. Luke frowns.  
“I’m saying you need to be discerning, Rey! You need to be reasonable--I know you want to believe, I know that it’s easy to think good things of people, but--”  
“I know what’s in him, Luke! I know what’s in his mind--I’ve seen what’s in his thoughts, I’ve felt his feelings like they’re mine! He’s not tricking me!” Luke’s eyes narrow.  
“Rey, he’s a leader in the First Order--he’s a powerful tool that Snoke is using as a weapon against the entire galaxy--the Dark Side has him, Rey! I wish things were different, but he’s trying to get hooks into you now as well. I won’t let him do that; there is so much more at stake than you realize!” Rey snarls at him now, baring her teeth and hissing as she speaks and getting to her feet.  
“ _You’re_ the one who won’t tell me things, who hides things from me, who’s sneaking around to spy on me! I’m tired of everyone telling me that I don’t understand--I will _never_ understand until someone explains things to me!”

Rey is running before she even realizes it, it feels like. She runs, down paths and over rocks, and sand, and soft grass. She runs and runs, the wind whipping her as she goes, and in spite of the cold and the burn of the wind, she keeps going until she nearly loses her footing and skids to a stop at the edge of a sea cliff. She stands at the peak of the rocks staring down into the churning ocean, breathing hard and trying to let her thoughts catch up to her. A long drop to rocks and beating waves below. She steps back finally, feels her heart pounding, and drops to her knees before flopping backwards onto her back on the grass. She feels anger in her limbs still, but she doesn’t know what to do. What can she do? They expect so much of her--Luke, Leia, Kylo Ren, the Resistance; they want things from her and won’t always tell her what, or why. She wants to trust them--all of them--but how is she supposed to do that when they don’t offer her the evidence she needs?

She remembers something she heard in one of the Sacred Villages once, and it makes her body slump against the grass.  
_Sometimes having faith is trusting in things you cannot see, or feel. You believe because you sense it, because you know it is the right thing to do._ _  
_ Rey wonders what the right thing to do is in this particular situation.

She wants to believe in all of them, but...she isn’t blind to the conflict in that. There’s a rumble in the distance and she knows a storm is rolling in; she sits up on the soft grass and lets the rising wind whip her hair around her face for a moment, watching the clouds begin to gather. Lightning strikes far out on the churning sea, and Rey exhales quietly, knows she should take shelter. Hefting herself to her feet, she thinks for a minute. There are huts nearby, and a cave system that leads down towards the ocean...she’ll wait the rain out there. Her eyes slowly shift to the path back to their shared dwellings, and she feels her brow knit. She doesn’t want to see Luke right now.

The rain starts to fall before she reaches shelter. Rey doesn’t mind this; she remembers the first time she felt the rain, the first time she _experienced_ rain: stepping out of the Falcon in a poncho Chewie had given her and unable to bring herself to cover up in the face of the weather phenomenon. Water was falling _from the sky_ \--why would she ever want to hide from that? Of course, she didn’t understand things like sickness and chill back then, but the rain that day was like something out of a myth, drenching her in a beautiful cool, making her hair and her clothes stick to her. She lifted her face to the sky and drank it in, amazed. She had never known something like this was even possible, that water could just fall like this; it was like a blessing from the Force, something telling her she was in the right place.

Now the rain falls, and Rey sits in the mouth of a cave watching the storm rove over the land outside. She huddles against the stone wall and rests her head on her knees and wonders, wonders, is afraid--has she made the right decisions? Is this rain telling her she’s made the right choices, or the wrong ones? It rained shortly after she arrived here on Ahch-To. It was raining that day when Kylo Ren kissed her in a field on D’Qar. She wipes her mouth almost instinctively and her face hardens. Maybe she should stop looking for signs in the rain.

But then...where did that leave her? She shuts her eyes tightly. She’d wanted to believe in the rain being a good omen--and she supposes in a way that it _was_ ; but now she was here, and confused, and how was this a good thing? Her throat feels tight, and she grits her teeth. This is all ridiculous. Nothing is simple out in the world--Jakku was simple. She doesn’t miss it, but…

The storm continues. This one seems bad, she thinks, it might last a while. Finally, she forces herself to her feet, and wanders back further into the caves.

Kylo Ren is pacing in his room. Everything is in disrepair, smoke still rising from some of the wreckage, and he paces the floor in long strides, feet slamming into the durasteel each time he steps. Rey. Rey, Rey, _Rey--_ she is the only thing on his mind. Well...her, and his damned uncle. Rey’s shut him out again--she’s with Skywalker, and she’s shut him out! What is it she doesn’t want him to hear, to see? What is she hiding from him? _Why_ is she hiding from him? He feels anger and jealousy rising up in him enough to make his hands form fists and pause in his pacing to slam bare knuckles into a wall. Why _now?_ Why, after everything that’s taken place in the past few weeks, is she blocking him in favor of Skywalker _now_ ?! He knows he’s been tight-lipped when it comes to Snoke, but--what’s he supposed to tell her? To explain everything would be betraying the First Order, betraying Snoke, and he feels a gut-wrenching fear in thinking of that. But Rey...if he can’t tell her, can’t _warn_ her, then how can he keep her safe? Rey is so much more powerful than Snoke realizes, gives her credit for, but Snoke knows she’s still not trained as thoroughly as she could be. She could fend off soldiers he sent for her, and Kylo Ren can deflect things as much as possible, but he can’t protect her remotely from all of it. The Resistance is pressed so thin now that he knows they can’t, either--and his uncle seems more invested in keeping her away from him than actually getting to the root of the problem. What Snoke wants with Rey…

Their ‘talk’ had been informative, if painful.  
Rey had been right, he did look worse for wear; Snoke is not pleased with the time that’s passed since his apprentice first set out after the Scavenger. Kylo Ren’s strength went to keeping the bond hidden, but the methods Snoke used to extract information were draining and excruciating. He didn’t take care, didn’t offer any mercy or caution with his subject, even in the case of Kylo Ren. Kylo could keep the link hidden, but he couldn’t hide everything else--Snoke knows now of Rey disappearing into dense crowds on Coruscant, and has seen Luke fending Kylo Ren off before getting offplanet with Rey in tow. His fury at Kylo Ren’s failures was agonizing; his body aches and he refuses to go to the medbay, but likewise he refuses to rest until he knows what is going on with Rey.  
Snoke has ordered him to remain on the ship, but he’ll deal with any consequences later.

The storm rages on on Ahch-To. Rey watches the ocean churn from a cave mouth on the side of a cliff, watches lightning strike out on the water and make the waves spray and swell and rage. The energy of it makes her body tingle, but she doesn’t want to move. She shuts her eyes to it, tries to let her energy out. Just be a conduit, let it flow through you, don’t harness, just direct...it’s relaxing, in a way. The Force begins to rush through her like she’s in a river, and Rey drifts into it, letting it rock her and rush around her personal signature. She can feel other energy from all over the galaxy--light and dark, peaceful and frightened, the good and the bad things. The Force doesn’t discern, it only carries and moves; she wonders what part of all of this is coming from her friends, from the Resistance. From the First Order. Does she know any of these energies? Any of these muted, soft, too-quick voices? She breathes deep and lets herself just release what’s in her own consciousness; the aggravation, the stress, the anger...she doesn’t like holding onto it, not now. It isn’t what’s driving her anymore.  
_What_ **_is_ ** _driving you now?_

She blinks her eyes open at this, but something else stabs into her thoughts, into her web of senses, and sends her lurching to her feet, squinting into the distance.  
What--how--it can’t be--  
A ship comes tearing down into the atmosphere. Rey’s eyes widen and she watches it zip through the rain, but it’s not steady, something is wrong. The storm is too strong, it’s tossing the ship around, the craft is going to crash if it’s not careful--  
“ _Kylo_ !” She’s screaming into the storm and then sprints back for the mouth of the cave. What is he _doing_ here--something’s wrong, he’s going to crash, and she knows it’s him, she knows his signature, she knows! She gets to the cliffside and there is more, now. TIE fighters incoming, two of them plus another ship, and Rey feels her stomach drop. Oh Maker--oh no, no no this can’t be right, he wouldn’t--he wouldn’t have brought them here--

Her thoughts rush to Luke, to Kylo, angry and afraid and gutted. She runs for the gathering of huts, wants a weapon, anything--her staff is still in Luke’s X-Wing and she roars in frustration until she sees the lightsaber, the one that called to her, the one that belonged to Anakin Skywalker, the one she didn’t want, didn’t deserve…  
Rey snatches it out of the hut and races back out into the rain.

His ship crashes. It’s not a soft landing, not an easy one; he’s more tired than he thought and even making it to this ridiculous, remote planet was a strain, but then when he breaks the atmosphere and it’s storming, he nearly groans. Of course. This wouldn’t be easy, would it?  
He struggles to focus and keep steady in the wind and rain, but eventually the weather gets the best of him, and his fighter careens into the island. At least it’s the right one, he grants dryly, but then he’s fumbling and stumbling out of the ship before things can get even worse. Rey is here, he feels her, doesn’t want to reach for her yet but he knows, he knows she’s nearby and knows that she knows he’s here.  
The noise is faint at first. Standing in the beating rain, his brow knits and he strains to hear, but there it is--the scream of TIE fighters, and he sees them abruptly come into view through the rain just after he hears them. A pair of them and a small shuttle; a gift from Hux, more likely than not. He curses under his breath and withdraws his lightsaber, knowing this is not going to go well.

Rey is sprinting through the rain, against the wind and towards the crashed ship. She can see the TIE fighters touching down and wills herself to run faster, to hurry, to get there--wills the rain to stop…

She sees his ship catch fire before she can reach the scene. It begins to burn in spite of the rain, and Rey can see a burning red blade in the light.  
When Kylo Ren sees her, he sees the blue saber alight in her hand, lighting up her face in the rain. She looks confused and angry, and he stares at her for a long moment.

A blaster shot zips past him and Rey deflects it--and Kylo watches her brow knit furiously. She glares at him as she starts towards him, and he is suddenly very aware of the stormtroopers around him, blasters aimed on her.  
“Orders are to bring her back alive! Squadrons, advance.” The troopers designated begin to slowly advance on Rey, blasters aloft, and their commander  turns to Kylo Ren, obviously cautious but still following their orders.  
“Sir, our orders are to return you to the Finalizer.” Kylo Ren stares the commander down, saber still blazing in his fist, a burning red warning.  
“Your orders from _who_ , Commander?”  
“From General Hux, sir. Yourself, and the girl. Please come with us.” It is not a command, it is a plea. None of these troopers need to die.

But then blaster fire breaks out near Rey, and he hears her shout.  
None of these troopers need to die. But now, they all will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a late chapter this week. i'm not 100% thrilled with the outcome this week, but it does the job of getting us to our next event.  
> sorry about the delay, everyone; it's been a rough week here, work's been killing me. hopefully next week will be on time!
> 
> thanks for reading as always! i love all of you guys, thanks for sticking with me, and thank all of you so, so much for the comments and kind words!  
> i know this one's a cliffhanger, forgive me!


	18. Diffusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush.  
> Confusion. A wound. _Escape._

Rey fights the squadron of stormtroopers back like she’s never fought before--she’s used to one-on-one with Luke and Kylo Ren both, armed as she is; but there is a thrill in this, in the danger of it, in the rush of swinging at them and feeling them fall at her feet that Rey is both suddenly hooked on and terrified of. Kylo Ren roars nearby and she feels him crash into her, feels their link open up and she flows with him in the bond and they fight as one.

Blaster shots deflect off of their blades in tandem, batons are beaten back. Troopers fall one by one, but not before Rey is shot in the shoulder. She screeches, half in rage and half in pain, and Kylo Ren’s head immediately flicks to her direction, eyes finding her instantly.  
“ _Rey!_ ” He thunders over the storm and the hail of blaster shots, and in moments, the troopers around him are on the ground. He feels her pain through the bond and it drives him on, rushing to her as quickly as he can. He feels a kind of rage that makes him seethe with it, nothing is going to stop this until he gets to Rey. How _dare_ they hit her, how dare they _hurt_ her--Rey is _his_ ; no one will ever harm her and live, not so long as he can find them.

The troopers have Rey on her knees when he gets to her, slicing through one of them so that he can see her in front of him when the armored body falls. Rey is fighting them like a wild animal, her body a weapon now that they’ve wrenched the lightsaber from her grasp. She thrashes about, legs swinging and knocking two troopers back as she tries to free herself; Rey shrieks and howls, fighting to get away but to no avail. It takes four troopers to hold her down finally, and Kylo Ren would be impressed if he weren’t so furious.

The Force sends the troopers flying back, two of them slamming into one another hard enough that their helmets crack. The third is getting to their feet but can’t manage it before Kylo curls the fingers on his outstretched hand inward and crushes the trooper’s windpipe, and the fourth shoots at him, but the blaster shot is deflected back into his chest by a swift swing of Kylo’s lightsaber. Rey is gripping the wound on her shoulder and grappling with her own lightsaber, watching Kylo Ren dispatch the last few stormtroopers around them with his blade, and there is a mixture of awe and fear in her eyes. He is a storm to rival the one raging around them, black clothing whipping in the rain and wind and stirred into motion by the Force, the burning light from his lightsaber turning everything red, red, dark and bright and terrifying _red_. She can feel it, stronger than before. The dark in him is swelling up, flowing through his movements as he hacks at the troopers’ armor like some berserker. He is weak and hurting, but Rey...all he sees is Rey, all he focuses on is _Rey_. She focuses on his face with wide eyes as she stumbles to her feet, saber clung in the hand of her limp arm as she trudges through the storm to him. He stops only when her hand is on his arm, bloody and shaking from loss of blood and cold, but she is firm, illuminated blue and bright, and her voice is so soft that he wonders if it is in the bond or aloud that he hears her.  
“Ky...Kylo, stop. It’s enough.”

He whips around suddenly, breathing hard and looking like he’s not himself, like he’s some beast she’s startled in a corner until he realizes it’s her, it’s Rey, it’s his Rey, and slowly, slowly, he goes still under her touch and his body relaxes.  
“Re-Rey…” He gets out, just barely audible, ragged and surprised--and Rey sees a sickening shade of golden yellow in his eyes flicker as he blinks in the rain and then fade back to their usual dark color, and Rey is lost for words for a long moment.  
“Rey--Rey, what have they done to you--they’ll never hurt you again, they’ll never touch you again, I swear it to you--” He tries to let her lean on him but he is weakened, cold, and his strength is fading. Rey wraps her arms around him as best she can and her fingers bite into his soaked clothing, trying to steady their two bodies against each other.  
“Kylo--what the fuck is wrong with you--what are you _doing_ here--” she coughs through the rain and the burning pain in her shoulder. “Why did they come here with you--what is going _on_?!” He coughs, furious with his own weakness, fighting his body to move. He manages to let her lean on his side and help her with him, and they stay close together. Rey breathes deep, reaches into the bond, focuses. If she could give him just a little more strength…

And then she feels it. The siphon of energy, flowing from her to him. Carefully she feeds energy into it at first, feels his strength growing, feels his surprise when she feeds more of her own power into him. Rey can feel her limbs getting heavy and limp, can feel him taking the lead in walking them out of the rain, and when he realizes it he looks at her quickly, fearfully.  
“Rey--what--” But she shakes her head.  
“Caves, not far. Get us there.” She holds onto him as best she can, _Just tired. Use my energy, arm hurts too much._ It’s all she manages, even in the bond. He’s worried still, but he feels stronger from her help, and lifts her into his arms. Rey winces and chokes out a pained gasp through clenched teeth, but he can’t stop, just keeps her close and hurries for the place she’s guiding him towards. It’s all she can really do, letting herself sort of go into a stasis, drifting in the bond and trying to focus on her wound, trying to make the pain subside so she can think.

The cave system is dark and damp and cold; but it’s out of the rain, and is deep enough that they can hide for a little while, just in case. Kylo Ren hopes this won’t be necessary, but then, he’s surprised that first shuttle followed him to begin with. Anything is fair game at this point.  
He carries Rey back into the darkness until the cave tunnels widen and there’s enough of a pocket for them both to rest, and then it takes some maneuvering, but he manages to get his cape off to drape over the cave floor so he can lie Rey down on top of it. She winces again, but when he goes to his knees beside her and ignites her lightsaber to see things better, mostly she just looks _tired_ \--her eyes are hazy and she seems to look right through him, and he worries about her wound. He reaches for her in the bond and finds that she’s trying to rest, trying to gather energy again, and he doesn’t know what to do. The blaster wound is cauterized around the edges but her flesh is _burnt;_ blackened around the entrypoint and the wound itself is putrid, leaking plasma and reeking of burning tissue. It makes him want to retch, but he knows this scent too well to shy from it now.

He has no medical training, no kits here, nothing to help her, and she is pale and cold and in pain--she’s given him her energy just to get them out of the rain, out of the open, and now he can do nothing but watch her suffer. He slams a fist into the stone wall of the cave and lets out a wail of fury that resounds through the tunnels and echoes even louder throughout, and Rey makes a soft sound of acknowledgement, her eyes trying to focus.  
“Kylo…” It’s quiet and rasping, and his fingers form claws in frustrated anxiety at her situation as he leans over her frantically.  
_Don’t talk--just--just--use the bond, don’t…_ He doesn’t know what else to say, brow knitting at his uncertainty.  
_I don’t...know what to do...need to...stop the wound leaking…_ She sounds almost faraway even in the bond and he reaches out in their link, bringing her energy in close to his. Rey curls around him in the bond, cuddling close to the warmth his energy is generating like it’s a hearth. He pauses, feeling the shift, and he stretches out beside her in the real-world, wrapping his arms around her to get some kind of warmth between them.

_I don’t know what to do, Rey. I don’t know how to help--_ He shakes his head, angry and worried for her, but Rey just shuts her eyes and presses close to his chest.  
_Might stop soon. Just...stay like this. Need to stay warm…_ She’s so, so tired. His arms tighten around her and he buries his face in her hair, furious at his helplessness and feeling his desperation open his consciousness up to the Force.  
_Help her,_ he rages at the living Force, feeling it slithering around them, through them, coiled like an ever-moving serpent, _I need to help her! You never made me a healer but I’ll do anything to help her!_

The Force listens. The Force is silent, slowly undulating around them in a rhythm that gives the impression of a heartbeat, listening, listening, listening…

Something seems to nudge Kylo Ren, pricks at the center of his energy, very subtly and lightly threading energy from himself to Rey. She lines her body up with his almost instinctively, and he holds her close, shutting his eyes and feeling himself drift with her, the Force becoming a slow, warm ocean around them both. They are safe, for now. Safe, and so, so tired. Rey breathes deep and knows now she does not need to reach for him, search for him. Rest. Rest, recover. Regain strength. The fight will begin again when they wake, but now they rest, energy circulating between the two of them, slowly growing as their two poles feed the current, slow and continuous. Rest.

When Luke finds them, after hours of intense storm and then more time of searching for Rey’s Force signature, he comes upon Rey and Kylo Ren huddled chest to chest on the floor of a deep cave pocket, two pairs of arms locked around one another. Kylo Ren’s hand holds Rey’s head in close and Rey’s fingers are curled into the back of his clothing--they hold one another protectively, possessively, even in slumber. For a long, silent moment, Luke Skywalker is at a loss for words or reaction, staring down at the two bodies. They have clearly seen battle--he’s seen the stormtrooper corpses, the burning wreck of Kylo Ren’s ship, the abandoned First Order shuttle--but he can see no blood, no wounds, even through their battered clothing. They’re alive, both of them, they’re simply...asleep.

There is something pulsing around them, however, something that fills the stone chamber with energy, the Force lingering here around them like a palpable haze. He doesn’t understand it, cannot explain it even to himself, but it _is_. Somehow, it just...is. His brow knits some and he watches them a moment longer with his lantern before taking a breath.  
This is so much more complicated than he gave it credit for.

The two of them sleep.

For a time, it is peaceful--more peaceful than they’ve felt in a good few weeks. They drift in the bond, entwined and placid, safe and gathering their strength again. Rey dreams of soft waves at sunrise on a white sand beach. Kylo Ren dreams of Rey.

Their energy feeds together and swells gradually as they rest, the Force keeping them together and their twin beacons of life nearly merged. Everything is peaceful, quiet.  
And then...a cold sensation.  
Kylo Ren feels it, sliding over his skin but not reaching Rey. He knows this feeling, it makes his skin crawl and his breath freezes in his throat.  
_You’ve_ **_found_ ** _her--I can sense it, my apprentice…_ Gravelly and deep, like something from the bottom of a deep, frigid sea. There is a dark glee in his voice, and the cold fingers try to reach for Rey, feeling over Kylo Ren for a means of getting to her. He fights it, tries to keep himself separate from her so the creature can’t find her, but they are together now, bound here by the Force, and he can’t separate them without doing it in some way that would signal that he is doing so deliberately to keep the intruder out. _Good...good…_ The voice, still pleased, still reaching, _Just as I knew you would. She will be a great asset--a great asset indeed…_ The cold hand nearly touches Rey, and just as it closes in towards her skin, there is a bright light, a blinding heat, and the creature recoils. Kylo Ren’s eyes are clenched shut, fearing this is his doing, fearing the backlash from it, but he feels Rey’s hands on his face, feels her forehead press to his. The freezing darkness starts to ebb away from the heat she brings to him, and there is a hissing anger that he can feel clawing at him; it hurts, it hurts, the cold stabs into him like knives, the shadow trying to keep its hold on him, tearing at him as it is pushed away, but Rey holds him, keeps them together, relentless in driving the other presence out.

He cannot feel the dark recede from him entirely, but he feels the _cold_ subsiding. Rey presses warmth into him, rubs her thumbs over his cheeks and pushes warmth into his skin. She draws his focus back to her, and his hands clutch at her for anchorage, desperate to stay with her. He can’t speak, terrified of that cold coming back, still reeling from the pain, but Rey is a beacon and he feels like he’s swimming through a churning sea to get to her. She stands in the distance, arms extended to him, all bright and blazing light--but there is something dark in her too, a shifting, swirling shadow that swims through the bright, shifting in and out of view as it spreads and gathers in her luminous form. He fights to reach her, choking on cold and fear, frightened that he won’t make it, but she finally wades in after him, hands still reaching for him in the darkness.  
_I’m here,_ she calls, soft and guiding, _I’m here, you can make it. Just make it here to me._

A memory, swift and burning, too fast to recall in its entirety; a voice, _her_ voice, a smile that lit up her face and rivaled the sun.  
_Keep going Ben! You’re almost to me, you can do it!_

Kylo Ren startles himself awake, gasping for breath in Rey’s arms, skin slick with cold sweat. Rey holds him tight, though, burning warm and strong.  
“Shh. He’s gone. Just breathe, we pushed him out.”

He clings to her in the cave, seeking relief, but instead all he feels is anxious. They’ve driven him out now, but he knows they’re together. Kylo Ren finds he can’t celebrate in light of that fact.

Rey holds onto him until the shaking stops, however, and breathes deep, coaxing him to breathe with her. They merge in the bond, and Rey reaches into him and settles his heart, warms his bones. _You’re here with me, now,_ she says firmly, _he’s not here, and he’s not getting in._  
Rey doesn’t know how she fought him back. She doesn’t care--it worked, whatever she did, and if it worked once then she’ll make it work again.

Outside, the storm has stopped. They sit up in the dim cave and stretch, but Rey realizes she’s moving, moving properly, and reaches to feel around her left arm in surprise. It works, moves, bends, she swivels her arm at the shoulder some and it moves as it should, just a slight ache in her muscles. Her eyes are wide as her fingers find a scar where the blaster wound was, and she is silently in awe, unsure how they managed this. Kylo Ren leans over her to inspect it himself, just as stunned as she is.  
“It’s...it’s scarred over.” He swallows dryly, blinking in the dim light and running a light finger over the new skin.  
“...A skin patch would get rid of it for you…” But Rey just looks at him, and he takes a deep breath, leaning back some.  
“I don’t care about a scar--”  
“I don’t know how it’s healed. I don’t--I can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that.” Rey blinks, raising an eyebrow at him.  
“How to do what?”  
“To--that! This!” He gestures to her shoulder, “Healing!” Rey looks at her scar again.  
“You can do that?”  
“No! That’s what I just said, I don’t know how--”  
“No, I mean you can use the Force to heal. In general.” His brow knits now.  
“It’s an old technique; the Jedi Order used it, and so did the Sith, apparently.” Rey looks mystified.  
“So if you know how, you can use the Force to heal wounds like that? I couldn’t even move my arm…” Rey marvels, shifting her left arm this way and that. Kylo Ren shakes his head.  
“If you’re trained to, it’s possible, yes. But I’m not trained--neither are you.” She wants to say something akin to ‘well how would you know’, but he’s right. Rey shakes her head in turn.  
“Then...okay, then what _happened_?”

In the end, Rey is really just grateful for the use of her arm again--she doesn’t care about the scar, doesn’t care about the cosmetic damage. Kylo Ren is baffled, but then he grudgingly admits that this certainly isn’t the first time the Force has surprised him.  
They don’t have an explanation for why her shoulder is healed, why his minor abrasions seem to be gone, but then, in the dim light they can’t properly see anything anyways. Rey thinks for a long moment and then nods at one of the tunnels.  
“This way.”

They emerge into blustery, gray daylight in the end. The cave system lets out into a grassy plain basin that leads out to the ocean, and overhead the sky is still overcast, but nowhere near so dark. Rey blinks into the bright outside, wading into the tall grass, and Kylo Ren follows her. They make their way through the grass to an outcropping of boulders, and Rey perches on one of the flat rocks, taking a moment to examine her shoulder. The new scar is almost star-like in shape--not quite the size of her palm, just above the junction of her armpit. She runs her fingertips over the skin, pressing and testing the spot. There is a dull ache--her muscles still hurt, the wound went deep--but no give at the pressure, no blood, no sign of impermanence. She looks up at Kylo Ren in amazement.  
“Look at it--it’s like it’s been healed for weeks…” He leans in, touches the scar gently, and then shakes his head some, meeting her eyes.  
“I’m sorry, Rey.” She blinks.  
“For what?” He rests his fingers over the scar.  
“For this. You would never have been shot if I had been faster.” Rey’s brow knits some.  
“Faster? There were probably twenty troopers--we handled that pretty well for just the two of us.” He frowns at this, though, looking out over the grass for a moment. Twenty of them...of the First Order’s stormtroopers--he knows they’ll have been accounted for as neutralized by now. He’s murdered troopers before; this is nothing new, their deaths at the hands of his rage--but this…

He’s become a traitor now. If he returns, he’ll be imprisoned, if not worse.

Rey senses what’s going on, and tilts her head some, tucking her knee up to brace her foot against the rock.  
“You don’t have to go back.”  
He turns to look at her, watches the wind tousle her brown hair around her neck, loose strands dancing around her face. She means this--but she doesn’t understand the gravity of it.  
“If I run, I’m a traitor.” She shakes her head, though.  
“So was Finn.” His lips form a line at this.  
“I highly doubt the Resistance would welcome me with such open arms.” Rey looks away now, sighing softly. He has a point, there.  
“But...your mother--”  
“Don’t bring her into this.”

The words are harsh and quick, and Rey looks back up at him. Kylo Ren’s face is cold and angry, and Rey frowns.  
“She misses you.” She says quietly, and he turns away from her.  
“There is no way I can join the Resistance. Not now.” Rey frowns, watching him quietly.  
“I know you think you’ve killed too many--”  
“I have, Rey. I have killed too many of them, too many of your...your compatriots. I’ve overseen strikes on Resistance bases, I’ve murdered people in cold blood because they opposed the First Order.” He rounds on her now, “Your friends on the base, anyone you’re close to, anyone you’ve spoken with, has lost someone because of me. And you think I can join your side now?” Rey doesn’t move, just stares back at him and tries to find a trace of something, anything, that might soften this. She finds nothing. Kylo Ren’s eyes are burning into hers, and Rey takes a silent breath.  
“...I know that won’t go away. But what will you do if you have nowhere to go?” Her voice is quiet, and he shakes his head finally.  
“I’ll figure something out.” Rey’s eyes narrow.  
“That’s not a good enough answer.” He frowns back at her.  
“What answer do you want, Rey?”  
Rey realizes she really doesn’t know.

The only sound for a long while is the wind rushing through the grass and the ocean beating at the shore, and Rey is lost for words. Kylo Ren stares hard at the ocean beyond the island shore, and breathes, trying to come up with something else to say to her. Where _can_ he go? The galaxy widely knows his mask, but not the face beneath it. He could remain under the radar for some time if he was careful, but then--  
“What about me?”

He pauses his train of thought, turning to look at Rey again. She gives him an almost defiant glare. His brow knits in slight confusion.  
“What--”  
“I said, what about me? So you’re going to just run off alone--what happens to me? I’m stuck just wondering when I’ll see you again, _if_ I’ll see you again?” He stares at her, and Rey stares back. “That’s not good enough for me.” Quiet falls between them again. He’s staring at her in a haze of wonder and disbelief, not fully willing to grasp what she’s possibly suggesting here.  
“Then what do you want, Rey?”  
“I want you.” She answers finally. “We’re stuck together. If you go somewhere, then I’m going too.”

He doesn’t know what to say to this. Rey can’t know what she’s saying, what she’s implying here--but she keeps her eyes on his, and he knows she is determined.

“Rey…”  
“We’re already bound together by the Force--being apart feels like a strain, and I know it hurts the both of us. If you’re planning on running away into the vast galaxy by yourself, then you may as well plan on taking me with you.” Kylo’s brow knits.  
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” Rey makes a face at him.  
“I do know I’m asking you to help me help the both of us. You want to be alone forever? Alone with just this link we have--nothing physical anymore, nothing real?” He drives on, though.  
“Rey you would be turning your back on the Resistance.” She shrugs.  
“Not really. I could figure out a way to get intel back to them somehow. I could still help them some way.” He frowns.  
“But you’re asking me to leave the First Order.” She frowns back at him now.  
“Don’t try to tell me they’re better than the Resistance. Don’t try to tell me that living under their control would really be something worth fighting for.” He doesn’t have a response to this. Rey leans her head up to look at him some. “At least like this no one would have to know you’re with me. We could run, and find a way to take that _monster_ down.” Kylo stares at her, disbelieving.

“Rey…” He can’t believe she’s suggesting this. If he’s honest, it’s what he’s wanted from the beginning...but this is different. The game has changed now--he looks at the scar on her shoulder and his eyes are hard, steeled by his rage at her wound. “You would be leaving your friends behind. Everything.” Rey doesn’t falter.  
“I’ll see them again.”  
“The pilot, Dameron. The Traitor. Your other pilot friends--” Rey’s gaze is unwavering.  
“They’ll be in more danger if I’m there, seems like. Resistance, First Order--doesn’t matter. This war is killing millions of people, and nothing is going to be right until the fighting stops.” He searches her eyes for some sign of doubt, some sign that this isn’t really what she wants. _I’m doing this,_ she says, steady and determined in the bond, _we’re going together or we’re not going anywhere. You can’t stop me._  
He knows she’s right about that.  
_What about Skywalker? What about...my mother?_ There is a sort of tremor in his voice, even in their link, when he mentions his mother. Rey’s eyes stay on his.  
_We go, we find a way to take that pfassking son of a bantha out of existence. We can protect them, we can help put an end to this war._ He shivers some at the ferocity in her, and manages a short nod, taking her hand as if sealing a pact.  
_We do this together._ Rey nods, squeezing his hand tightly.  
_Together. We’re gonna stop this._

Luke decides to see to the two of them after another stream of hours passes. He wants answers, wants his nephew...wants _Kylo Ren_ detained.  
He returns to the cave tunnel, but something is different. The caves are empty, the heavy presence of the Force is gone. His eyes are wide and he rushes back out, eyes scanning everything he can see. Nothing, no signs of either of them. His fingers curl into fists and he breathes deep, and tries to find Rey in the Force. Nothing….but then a flicker, and he latches onto it.  
_Rey!_ _  
_ But she doesn’t open up further. She’s blocking him, somehow--he’s impressed, but this is not good. Where is she?!

From a far ridge of the island, a First Order TIE fighter takes off, screaming through the atmosphere too fast for Luke to react. He knows who is onboard already. His eyes narrow and his limbs feel heavy, watching the ship break the planet’s atmosphere and disappear.  
He has to tell Leia, now. They have to find Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, shorter chapter this week, sorry about the slight delay!  
> continuing the headlong rush into things--these two really just do not get to enjoy any moments of calm, do they?  
> brief cameo from snoke this time, popping in just to be a general buzzkill and make things weird again.
> 
> as always, thank you all so much for reading and staying with me <3 you guys are all absolutely amazing, and i am ridiculously grateful and happy that you've stopped in to read and even leave comments sometimes. thank you guys so so much, i hope that this story continues to please, and that you guys stick around to the end!! <3


	19. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disguises.  
> Deliberation. Hiding in plain sight. A destination.

In a hangar on Coruscant, a line of TIE fighters sits in the middle of routine maintenance checks. Late arrivals are irritatingly common, and a few of these ships were behind schedule in checking in, so now the flight crews are having to rush in their work with inspection and repairs.

A squadron of stormtroopers is quipping at one another about recent assignments they’ve just arrived from as they exit the hangar, modulated voices chuckling behind white helmets.  
“Real mess on Pantora. Feel worse for JY-685’s squad, though.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“They got sent after Ren. That’s some real dangerous bantha shit!”  
“ _After_ Ren? What’d he do, run away?”  
“That’s what I heard. Went chasing that scavenger--Chutes told me about it, that girl they hauled in back before Starkiller blew--they’re still after her, I guess even Kylo Ren wants to get his dick wet sometimes.” There’s laughter through the group again.  
“So _that’s_ his type!”  
“So, what, he went rogue for some scavenger snatch?”  
“Who knows. Just heard General Hux has squads out after both of them, Ren and the girl too.”

The troopers disperse after exiting, and two of them head for the exit of the base, striding out into the endless metropolis and then immediately ducking into an empty alleyway. One tugs their helmet off, and Kylo Ren stands in the white plastoid armor, fuming.  
“Is _that_ what our troops are spreading around--I’ll see to it they’re all--” but the second ‘stormtrooper’ removes their helmet to reveal Rey, hooting with laughter.  
“‘Went rogue for some scavenger snatch’--that’s pretty funny!” She’s bent over slightly and shaking her head, starting to pull the pieces of armor off of herself already. He glares, though, hands crushing the white helmet between them with the aid of the Force.  
“I should have disposed of them there and then.”  
“What, so we could get arrested right there? This would have been a real short trip…” He makes a frustrated growling noise, hating that such rumors are flying around, furious that troops he himself had command over are talking about Rey like this. She’s right, still. They shouldn’t attract attention here.

It isn’t long before they’ve stripped down into their underclothes and are trying to figure out where to go from here. Rey is checking the pouch she’s stored the lightsaber in--she hesitates at calling it ‘hers’, it does not truly feel like ‘hers’, not like her staff did. But now it is the only saber she has. Kylo Ren scans the thoroughfare outside the alley, and when he feels satisfied, he motions to Rey.  
“We’re getting unmarked credits and we’re getting out of this system.” They emerge from the alley and join the commuting crowds. No one particularly pays them much mind, they stay together, stay alert, and navigate the streets side-by-side.

Rey wishes she could take time here--she wants to see more of this planet, but now is not the time.  
_Where are we going?_ She doesn’t look up or even move her eyes. He stays just as impassive while responding.  
_A banking station. I’m shifting credits to a different location so we won’t be tracked that way._ Rey manages to keep her expression mostly neutral, though her eyebrows go up slightly.  
_We could be tracked down because of credits??_ He keeps steering them through the crowds.  
_Yes. If they can get access to where deposits or, in our case, withdrawals are made, they could follow us at the very least._

It doesn’t take long. A quick visit; Rey watches through his eyes from around the corner just in case. They’re taking precautions and she knows this is necessary--besides, she’s never handled credits in her life.  
When he comes back to her after it’s all done with, there’s still an urgency in things, but it’s renewed and now less anxious. Coruscant is enormous, they’ll be long gone before anyone can pinpoint this place. Kylo Ren glances at Rey, however, in her canvas pants and her ragged, cropped-off undershirt, and he purses his lips some.  
_We need clothing._ Rey raises an eyebrow, glancing down at herself.  
_We have clothes. What’s wrong with this?_  
_Well for one, you’ll stick out anywhere else we go in that._ Rey squints at him briefly.  
_You mean I’ll_ **_distract_ ** _people. I’m pretty sure that’s just you, though._ He does have the decency to look away.  
_It won’t just be me. We’re getting new clothes._ And that’s that.

Rey grumbles about how this is a waste of credits, but while they’re on a public transport speeder she winds up finding out she’s wrong about him being the only one distracted. She rolls her eyes when she catches creatures around them staring at her, but grudgingly admits Kylo was right; she doesn’t want to stick out like this. Kylo Ren, meanwhile, is menacing enough to keep any wayward hands at bay for the time being. Still, ‘accidents’ happen, and when a seedy-looking male jostles into Rey from behind, she has to stop Kylo Ren from drawing even _more_ attention to them both.  
_We need our own ship,_ he growls, and Rey can’t help but agree, even if it’s for different reasons.

 

Luke wastes little time in getting to the base on D’Qar again. There seems to be a sparking energy throughout the place--even with everything on his mind he can sense it. Something is happening, something has everyone excited.  
Leia is in one of the war rooms, looking over star maps with Admiral Statura and a handful of officers and pilots as well. When Luke enters, the room quiets some, and then Leia excuses herself from the group to speak with her twin.  
“Luke! What’s going on, is everything all right?” She leads him to a quiet corner of the room, looking up at him in concern, brows knitting some over questioning eyes. Luke looks as though there’s something brewing in him; Leia knows this look, he has something to tell her and he doesn’t know how. “Tell me, Luke. What is it?” She feels young for a moment, young but no longer blissfully unaware of who she is, the weight of their shared lineage. Luke sighs heavily.  
“Rey is gone.” Leia pauses.  
“What do you mean ‘gone’? She goes and comes, Luke, she’s exploring, now that she has some kind of independe--”  
“She’s with Ben, Leia.”

Now silence falls between them. Leia’s gaze falls and focuses on nothing, unsure how to react. She’s had a feeling something was going on--Luke seemed convinced before, but now…  
“How--how...what happened?” Her voice is slightly hoarse, not certain she wants to know the answer. Luke’s eyes are dark.  
“I found them on an island on Dac. I brought Rey back with me, but she is...there is a darkness growing in her, Leia. It’s just as I thought--and now he’s taken her away somewhere. That girl could be the key to ending all of this, but if he corrupts her--” Leia makes a choked sort of noise, not wanting to hear more.

“He _took_ her?!”  
“There was a storm. Rey went to cool off, she was upset; when the storm broke, I went to find her. There was a crash; TIE fighters, a shuttle even. Stormtroopers scattered on the grass with lightsaber and blaster wounds. I found them... _both_ of them, in a cave. I was waiting for them both to wake, but it was nearing dusk again and when I went back, they were gone. A TIE fighter left the wreck site, both of them were on it.” Leia looks confused, concerned.  
“Both of them...Luke, what is going _on_?” Her brother shuts his eyes and looks so, so tired.  
“They have a Force bond.”  Leia’s eyes widen.  
“What? What does that mean?”  
“It means they’re connected now. Rey said she thought it formed when she got into his head on Starkiller, but that means he’s had access to her head for _months_ now.” Leia looks ashen.  
“All of these attacks...all of the bases they’ve destroyed…no…” Luke’s expression is grave.  
“He could have gotten the locations from her. Rey trusts him, but we can’t trust either of them, now.”

Leia feels her heart aching in her chest. Her son, now Rey...she wants so much to believe in them, but there is more at stake now than her own heart, and she knows this. She’s always known.

General Organa takes a breath, and shuts her eyes, nodding.

“We’ll send squadrons out after them. We can’t afford to leave this base vulnerable, but we’ll find them.” Luke nods, downcast. This situation has gotten far out of hand, so much more than he ever expected.  
“We need to get her away from him.” Leia is silent for a long moment.  
“And if we can get her back, bring her back here? Then what?”  
“Then we see if there is anything that can be done. If a bond can be forged, it can be broken.”

 

Rey has to be the most difficult creature in the galaxy to dress. She refuses anything too form-fitting, she doesn’t know what matches, she won’t wear skirts...in the end, Kylo Ren has to remind her that they are supposed to blend in and not look like themselves. Rey relents when he brings this up, and finally decides on a few garments to purchase, grumbling a bit about being wasteful even if she doesn’t really mean it. Really, she’s a bit overwhelmed by the fact that she’s got so many items of clothing now; full outfits! She can mix things together! And she has no idea what to do with _colors_ , but, she decides, she definitely likes them.

Kylo Ren has to be the most obnoxious creature to dress in the universe. He is determined to be attention-grabbing and impractical, and just will not give up black. Rey grumps at him from under a knit brow about keeping a low-profile and reminds him that they need to _not look like themselves_ , and finally manages to drag him back out of the shop with her. Kylo realizes, as they pass other storefronts and he catches sight of them in the window reflections, that he is dressed more like his father than he cares to admit, and more than he’s certain he’s comfortable with. Still...he supposes Rey was right. No one would ever expect to see him looking this way.

They sit in a diner, finally, and Rey is torn between saving credits and _eating_. The entire place smells delicious, she wants to try _everything_! Kylo sits across from her looking unenthused. This dive smells like grease and filth, and everything looks disgusting, but they need food, and this place is nondescript, fast, and cheap. Rey tentatively orders things while glancing at him over and over as she adds more to her order, but he just rolls his eyes and waves her on before ordering the least-unappetizing thing he can find and settling back in his seat, raising an eyebrow at her.  
“You’re sure you can eat all of that.” Rey’s too busy looking around at everything.  
“Uh-huh--probably can…” He glances around now as well. No security cams in sight, and no one seems to be looking at them. No one recognizes them, and he doesn’t see any familiar faces either. “There’s no one paying any attention to us.” Her voice brings him back to the two of them, and he looks at her again.  
“Can’t be too careful.” Rey nods a little, sipping at the water they’ve got.  
“No, you’re right. Still, so am I,” She grins at him, “and I’m hungry. So we’ll eat and then get out of here.” He rolls his eyes again, but it’s somewhat fond. Rey is optimistic, but she’s focused still. “Where are we going, anyway?”

Kylo Ren shakes his head.  
“I’m still working that out. We need somewhere safe, somewhere the Order won’t look for us. I don’t think the Outer Rim will be the best place to hide this time.” Rey takes a breath, thinking.  
_I think you’re right. We need to go somewhere they won’t expect--everyone goes to the Outer Rim to hide. At least...that’s what I always used to hear._ He nods.  
_It’s true. I’m not sure where we’ll go, though--we can’t stay here, and most Core planets are heavy with First Order or Resistance presence._ Rey looks pensive.  
_I don’t know what other worlds there are, I don’t know where to even suggest._ He smiles after a moment, though, brow raising slightly as he looks at her.  
“Where would you want to go?”

Rey raises an eyebrow.  
“What?” He waves a hand encouragingly.  
“Tell me where you’d want to go. Describe a place to me. You’ve had years to dream up something, so tell me what you want to see.” Rey snorts.  
“We’re on the run, not sightseeing.” He just shrugs.  
“It can be both. If we’re good at running, it can be both.” Rey’s quiet at this, and as their food arrives, her face lights up.  
“Ohhh _Maker_ , this looks _delicious_!” Kylo Ren would beg to differ, but he says nothing, and lets her dig in.

“Somewhere green,” Rey ends up remarking, with a mouth half full of some kind of fried meat and veg. Kylo raises an eyebrow at her, picking at his plate.  
“What?” She swallows, washes her food down with a soda she’s ordered. Kriff, she eats like an animal.  
“Somewhere green. You asked where I wanted to go. Somewhere green. Somewhere with lots of trees...and flowers.” She burps now as well and laughs a little at herself before tucking back into her food. Kylo just stares, a mixture of awe and disgust on his face.  
“...You know, I’m stunned no one’s noticed us yet, really…”  Rey makes a face at him, her cheeks bulging slightly before she swallows hard.  
“Oh shut it. I’ve never tasted anything like this! You’re the one that’s barely eating…” He makes a sour sort of face.  
“I’ll survive, I assure you.”  
“Wasn’t worried about that.”  
“Charming.” Rey just grins at him.  
“Works well enough on you, though.” He raises a brow at her.  
“You seem confident about that.” She shrugs, grin still in place.  
“Shouldn’t I be?”  
He’s incredibly irritated that he can’t prove her wrong.

The food dwindles. Rey eats her own _and_ some of his, and he’s not sure if he’s horrified or impressed by all of this.  
“Are you sure you’re full? Really?” Rey rolls her eyes, and pats her stomach.  
“I’m full, thank you. Think of a planet yet?” He sighs.  
“A few. But we need transport.” Rey nods slowly.  
“So we get a ship.” Kylo deadpans her.  
“‘Get’ a ship. How do you propose we ‘get’ a ship?” Rey shrugs.  
“Buy one? There’s gotta be someone selling--”  
“Rey, that kind of credit exchange is going to be too conspicuous.” Rey takes a breath, nodding finally as she exhales loudly.  
“That’s true. We could always steal one, but...that would have even more people after us. So what do we do?” He shakes his head, looking displeased.  
“I’m not proud of myself for this plan, but we’ll take public transport.” Rey raises an eyebrow.  
“Thought you had enough of that earlier.” His lips form a thin line.  
“I did. But we need to get offplanet, we can buy a cabin on a ship, we just need a destination.”  Rey nods.  
“And maybe identities.” His brow knits some.  
“...Identities?”  
“Yeah. I’m not giving out my name, are you? Not sure that really helps with being inconspicuous…” _‘Hello, I’m Rey, Jedi student of Luke Skywalker, and this is my traveling companion Kylo Ren,’ are you seeing the problem yet?_ He inhales deeply through his nose.  
“Right...right…then we need identities. We can get through checkpoints easily enough but names on travel documents will help cover our tracks.” Rey nods back at him, pushing a piece of round fruit around her plate.  
“Okay, then let’s figure out who we are.”

At a Galactic Travel Station, a young couple is passing through security to get tickets offplanet. The young lady takes their luggage and hands it off as her companion purchases their tickets, paying just a bit more for a private cabin for the two of them. The trip won’t be too long, but at least they can rest a while on the way to their destination.  
When he finishes purchasing their travel documents, they meet again and he ushers her along through the crowds.  
“You took care of everything?”  
“There wasn’t much to take care of. Just buying tickets, ensuring we have travel identification.”  
“So, where are we going?” He smiles, a hand on her lower back to steer her along. She’s a little surprised at the gesture, but his smile is more distracting just now.  
“We’re going somewhere green. Somewhere you’ll love.”

Aboard the starship, the two are shown to their cabin. It’s small, but they won’t be here long, and it’s only the two of them. A little table with two comfortable chairs, an alcove bed in one wall. The door shuts behind them and they visibly relax.  
The young lady is in soft gold and pink, loose clothing that moves easily and is surprisingly cool. She’s kept her hood up so far, the pale rose-colored fabric draped over her hair and obscuring her face slightly, but she lets it fall now and strides over to settle on the mattress, exhaling a sigh of relief. Her companion is in brown and blue, utilitarian and unassuming in appearance. He inspects the room some, but she nods at him.  
“No cams. Can’t hear them--there’s a noise, a little--”  
“A very high noise, yes. You’re right, no cams. I think we’ll be fine; the trip won’t be long as it is.” She raises an eyebrow at him.  
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.” He smirks at her.  
“You don’t like surprises?” She flops onto her back on the bed in response, and pulls out her travel ID from her outer robe.  
“Veré…”  She lifts her head some. “ ‘Set and Veré’. Where did you come up with these?” He strides to stand over her, leaning on the wall creating the alcove.  
“Just old names.” A lie, but it doesn’t matter. ‘Veré’ shifts a little further onto the bed, making room for ‘Set’, and he follows, climbing onto the mattress with her. “Just old names to get us where we need to go.” ‘Veré’ grins at him.  
“Where exactly is it that we need to go?” ‘Set’ leans his head in close to hers, tired from everything that’s taken place and craving her.  
“You’ll see.” She shivers some, taking a breath and taking his face in her hands. They’re alone now, just she and him, and feeling his skin again is wonderful.

Their clothing is off in moments. She needs help with hers--she’s not used to all of this, she’s wondering if she’ll be able to get back _into_ it all later--but his is easier to manage. They shut off the lights and let a small courtesy light on the ground light the room, casting shadows over the walls and their skin with pale yellow light. In the end, she straddles his waist and leans over him, her eyes turning honey-amber in the light, her skin like gold, and he marvels at her. His hands are reverent, stroking her curves and edges alike, and when she shifts against him, rocking her hips back against his aching cock, he buries his face against her collar and fights himself not to pull her hips onto him right then. She tosses her head and groans when she feels his soft lips brush one of her tender nipples and tease it with a burning-hot tongue, and she wants him, wants him, _wants him_ so badly, reaching to guide him to her and shuddering when she shifts her hips and the head of his cock slides along her folds and up against her clit. She can feel him pulsing against her skin and she moans breathlessly, his name the only thing on her tongue as she ruts eagerly against him, desperate for release and impatient to have him inside her.

He gives her nipple a not-so-gentle tug with his teeth and she gasps, jerking in surprise and moving enough to let him reach and find her entrance properly himself. He’s slick with her already, and she’s so wet, so ready, that when she shifts her hips back and he shifts his up, he slides into her with ease. She gasps again and arches over him, fingers curling into the pillows around his head, and she bites her lip as she presses back further, shallowly rocking her hips in the effort to take all of him in. He hisses as she pushes her hips down onto him, hilting his cock in her cunt and making them both see stars. They feel everything together, his body, her body, every touch, every shiver, every beat of their two hearts, and it is pleasure like neither of them has ever known before one another.  
She is the first to move, slow and deliberate, testing the new angle, grinding against his cock and straightening her back. He stays where he is for now, hands on her hips, fingers pressing into her skin as he admires the gold light on her body, the contour created by light and shadow, shifting as she rides him. She shivers and sighs, able to control everything better this way--but she brushes something and they both jerk with the sudden feeling, his head tossing back against the pillows, eyes shut as he groans under her.  
“Look at me.” Her voice is low quiet, but commanding. Chest heaving, he obliges, and she slowly lifts herself up and then lowers again, her eyes locked on his as she does. She’s determined now; his muscles flex to even suggest he might try and take control of her hips and he feels his arms stilled by some invisible shackles. She shakes her head at him, leaning back to prop herself up on her hands, undulating her hips against his as she does. He can feel her hair brushing his legs as she throws her head back, thrusting and grinding against him at her own pace, but he can sense it--she’s trying to delay her release, trying to draw this out, to enjoy everything more.  
_It’s been so long--kriff I’ve wanted you…_ He grunts, frustrated at being bound like this but still so glad to just be with her again.  
_We have time now--we have plenty of time, I promise you--_ ** _Maker_ ** _Rey…_

She’s so close, her legs are trembling and he can see her stomach fluttering some as she fights to hold out.  
“Aah--fuck, _fuck_ , oh Force, _Kylo_ \--” The words tumble out of her mouth in a frenzied stream, and he can’t hold out any longer. His orgasm is hard and abrupt, he breaks free of the hold Rey has on him and grips her hips tight, hammering into her as he comes. She cries out over the slap of their skin and bucks her hips against him, desperate to come, and he feels her overwhelming need in his bones and helps her along. The moment his fingers find her clit, Rey shrieks, her body jolting, cunt gripping his cock almost too-tight, and her thrusts against him are erratic and near frantic. He rubs his thumb over the little sensitive nub, tucks his knees up behind her, and gives her slow, rhythmic thrusts in return, watching her writhing over him as she fights to find her release.  
_Come for me, Rey,_ he purrs into the bond, sharing the intense pleasure with her, _come for me now._  
And she does.

Rey howls with her release finally, driving her hips down onto him so that he’s hilted in her cunt again and every little jerk of her hips brushes his cock against that perfect spot. She twitches and clenches around him and her chest heaves as the waves of pleasure slowly ebb away. Languid with the onset of sleep and the pleasure still radiating between the both of them, Kylo Ren shifts Rey so he can take her into his arms, groaning at the feeling of their bodies still joined while they move. Rey jerks and shivers in his arms, still tender and sensitive, and he rubs her back, kissing just under her jaw.  
“Good girl…” He murmurs to her, burying his face against her neck. Rey’s whole body feels like it’s tingling and she exhales, trying to catch her breath.  
“Maker…” she breathes out, “ _Maker_ , that was so kriffing good…” He snorts, trying to maneuver the blanket over them.  
“Glad we agree on that.” She shifts again, trying to get comfortable, and when her movements finally dislodge him from inside of her, she shudders and sucks in a stuttered breath.  
“Oh-h-h-hh…” The sudden emptiness is strange and aching, and if she weren’t so tired she’d make every effort to fix it.  
_Later,_ he mutters tiredly, _We need some sleep._  
**_You_ ** _need some sleep,_ she quips back, but she’s just as tired as he is and she’s cut off by a yawn from her own mouth. He locks a possessive arm around her and drags her in against his chest.  
_Go to sleep, Rey. Not long until we have to get up again._

She settles in and marvels some at how _nice_ this feels. Curling up with someone, falling asleep with someone like this. It’s warm. She feels content, sated from sex and perfectly comfortable in his grasp. She has no idea how this has happened--but she’s not complaining. Worries about the future, where they’ll end up, who’s coming for them...she lets them drift away until morning. Those are concerns for another time, when she isn’t so warm and satisfied and _happy._ She is, she realizes. She’s _happy_ right now, lying here with him.

Kylo Ren presses his face into her hair, breathing in and letting himself relax. This isn’t a dream, isn’t a fantasy anymore. Rey is here, in his arms, curled up in his embrace as they fall asleep. They are alone, have one another; his Rey is right where she should be. He feels her relax against him and his arms tighten some around her. No one will take her from him again. He does not know how he’s come to this point, but Rey is his, she is here with him, and he won’t let her go.

The room is quiet for a long moment before Rey shifts again and half-asleep, she mumbles against his shoulder.  
“Still didn’t tell me where we’re going…” He snorts some, deliriously drowsy.  
“Naboo,” he murmurs back, “We’re going to Naboo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an incredibly late chapter--i'm sorry about the delay!  
> another shorter chapter, hopefully the content makes up for it some at least. we're definitely getting somewhere here ;)
> 
> a little smut, a nice reveal at the end too. thank god for fanfiction because at least here i can see naboo again. :P
> 
> as always, thank you all for reading and staying with me--i'm trying to actually stick to schedule, i promise! it's been a rough few weeks, so forgive me for the hangups!


	20. Refuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discussion.  
> Flight. Unrest. Hideaway.

Rey wakes some hours later to an empty bed. Her body feels achy, but the sleep has helped--still, she feels around with a drowsy hand for her companion, and when she feels nothing but cool sheets, she rolls over and takes a deep breath through her nose, shifting onto her arm and blinking her eyes open slowly.

Kylo Ren is seated at the small table in their compartment, looking over some information on a datapad. He’s still shirtless, but clad now in still-unfastened trousers, his hair damp and a towel draped over his shoulders. There’s a tray on the table; she can smell caf in the air and sees some kind of wafer on a platter as well. Rey blinks a few times, adjusting to the light, and yawns, trying to let her mind catch up to her. Kylo glances over at her when she does this, brow rising slightly.   
“Finally awake?” Rey yawns again, sitting up and letting the sheets slide off of her bare skin. She feels achy, a little sticky, still tired. Stretching her legs out of the bedding, she arches her back and stretches her arms as well, looking at Kylo.   
“‘Finally’?”   
“You stirred a few hours ago. Muttered something I didn’t understand, rolled over, and went back to sleep.” Rey snorts.   
“Needed the sleep then.” She slides off the bed to her feet and stretches again, shivering a little at the air on her naked skin as she pads over to the table. “How long have you been up?” He watches her do this, a little taken aback at the fact she doesn’t bother to hide her nudity in the slightest, but also appreciative of that fact, if he’s honest. He shifts a little in his seat, reaching for his cup of caf.   
“Not long.”   
“Long enough to wash up.” She reaches out to flick at a few dangling strands of his hair, making a few drops of water hit the datapad screen. He shrugs idly as she reaches for one of the thin cakes they were given for breakfast.   
“The fresher’s down the hall. Public facilities, towels too.” Rey shrugs, leaning against the side of his chair and munching on the dry cake.   
“Right. What are you looking at?” She leans in over his shoulder, but he leans away from her, wrinkling his nose.   
“Go wash up first, kriff. I think I smell you.” Rey rolls her eyes.   
“Oh stop whining. I just need fresh clothes.” He frowns, nudging her arm off his shoulder.   
“You need a  _ bath. _ You don’t want to wash off??” He sounds incredulous. Rey just looks indifferent.   
“Why? Just need a change of clothes. No reason to waste water.” Kylo blinks at her a few times, digesting this.

“You’re telling me you feel fine right now. Not filthy at all.” Rey shrugs, leaning her head down a bit to sniff at herself.   
“Been worse.” He looks honestly repulsed for a moment.   
“Rey. Go wash off, for fuck’s sake--that’s disgusting!” Rey makes a face at him.   
“Don’t be so prissy, kriff. I barely smell, it’s only been two days!”   
“Two days? You bathed before I saw you on Ahch-To?” Rey raises an eyebrow.   
“Well, we were out in the--”   
“Fucking  _ Maker _ \-- _ the rain doesn’t count!! _ ” He’s up on his feet now and Rey looks a little irritated and a little confused, grumbling something under her breath that sounds to him like ‘says you’, but he gives her a pointed look and she knows he’s heard it anyhow. She rolls her eyes and waves at him dismissively.   
“Oh it’s  _ fine! _ You’re making too much of this--”   
“No--no--absolutely not--you’re going to bathe if I have to drag you there.” He throws the outer robe she wore onto the ship at her. “Put that on, go to the fresher!” He barks at her in that menacing, commanding tone that she knows he used with stormtroopers and personnel in the Order. Rey looks indignant, glaring back in that way he knows means she has no intention of being cowed into anything.   
“It’s just a waste! Besides, we’re gonna be there soon, and then, what, I’ll just probably get dirty again. A waste of water!”

There’s a moment in which Kylo Ren is about to snarl something, but then realizes something else. ‘A waste of water’--it occurs to him that Rey is serious--she genuinely thinks this is wasting water. On Jakku, it would have been, but…   
“Rey, this isn’t Jakku,” he deadpans, “Water is plentiful most other places. On a ship like this it’s not a waste, they have these facilities for travelers for this exact situation.” Rey wrinkles her nose now, frowning.   
“Ugh, why are you so adamant about this…” She grumbles to herself, but tugs the robe on anyhow. He brandishes the towel he’s had draped around his neck at her.   
“Because if we’re fitting in, we need to be as clean as anyone else. And because not bathing is a disgusting habit--”   
“--Oh  _ shut up _ \--”   
“--It’s not wasting water, Rey! You’re not on that garbage planet anymore, you can use water when you want. You can bathe when you want, you can keep yourself clean now.” Rey still looks a bit chafed about all of this, but she heads for the door anyways.   
“Whatever. I’ll be back, then.”

Figuring out public ‘freshers isn’t as much of a hassle as Rey anticipated. Honestly, the whole experience is better than she expected, but she decides not to give Kylo the satisfaction of knowing that. She does feel better after washing off, too, but she rubs at her hair with a towel and pulls her robe on again before stalking back to their compartment, a little annoyed at being wrong about this.

Back in their room, Kylo is still looking over the datapad. Rey raises an eyebrow as she comes in, and he flicks his eyes up to watch her enter before looking back at the small screen in his hands.   
“I didn’t smell you come in. I’m assuming that means you’re clean now?” Rey makes a vulgar gesture at him and throws her wet towel at his head. He catches it without looking up.   
“Maker, you’re annoying.”   
“It wasn’t so bad, now was it?” Rey’s expression is frustrated with her back to him--of course he knows, just like she knows he’s mostly serious but does at least somewhere deep down have her health in mind. She drops the robe and shakes her damp hair out some.   
“Still think it was a waste. What do you keep looking at on that pad?” He’s intent about finding something, she knows, but she’s not sure what.   
“I’m just checking something.” She comes to lean over his shoulder again now, glancing over the screen. She doesn’t know all of the words--some of them are names, or locations, but she catches onto the jist of it quickly enough.   
“A list of...owners?” He’s trying to ignore her breast pressing against his shoulder for right now, and Rey snorts, intentionally rubbing her bare chest against him now. “Sorry, am I being  _ distracting _ again?” He turns his head slightly to glance at her, keeping his hands on the datapad. She knows it’s a strain for him, and her grin widens when she hears how purposefully tight his voice is.   
“Very.”   
“Are you gonna make me put different clothes on again?”   
“You’re not wearing  _ any _ clothes right now. That doesn’t make sense.” She drapes an arm over his other shoulder now and makes a dismissive sort of noise.   
“I’m--”   
“--teasing, I’m aware.” She leans her head back a little at this response, squinting at him.   
“You’re focusing awfully hard on this list of yours. What’s so important about it?” He sighs, aggravated.   
“I’m trying to ensure we’ve got a place to stay on Naboo.” Rey blinks, glancing back at the screen.

“Are we  _ buying _ something?” She peers at the list again. He shakes his head.   
“No, but this is...you’ll see when we get there if this works as I want it to.” She raises an eyebrow at him.   
“You’re keeping  _ secrets _ ?” She doesn’t mean it to sound accusing, but she senses something shift in him when she says this, and he sets the datapad down, turning in the chair to look up at her.   
“Rey...I’m not hiding this from you for any other reason than to surprise you.” He’s almost startlingly serious, and Rey looks a little surprised.   
“I didn’t--Kylo I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t…” She takes a breath, thinking suddenly about everything that’s happened in the past few days. Somehow the situation they’re in now has drowned out everything else; she realizes she’s been  _ happy _ for the past day or so, and it’s muted all of the uneasiness and the anxiety she felt before. Kylo Ren feels it all coming back and instantly his hand is on her wrist, pulling her around the chair. He pauses before urging her forward, however.   
“What happened on Ahch-To...I swear to you I didn’t know about the troopers.” Rey stares hard at his face, trying to breathe, focus. He’s sincere, she knows.   
“They were there to take  _ both  _ of us. Why?”

He takes a breath.   
“Because I left to find you. Because I was sent by Snoke to retrieve you in the first place, and I disobeyed. He knows, he knows I found you, but I won’t bring you to him.” Rey feels his fingers tighten around her arm. “I won’t. You have to know, you have to--I won’t let him have you.” His voice is hushed and imploring, and she feels him pawing at her consciousness.  _ Believe me, please believe me, tell me you believe me.  _ Rey takes his opposite hand in hers, her face still hard.   
“He sent troopers after you and me both, now?” Kylo shakes his head.   
“He didn’t. Hux did.”   
“The…” She can see the man’s face in Kylo’s mind, the voice, knows him without knowing him. “The general. Why?”   
“Because I think Snoke gave him my job, to find you.” Rey inhales slowly, nodding.   
“Why does Snoke want me so badly? I know I’m Force-sensitive, but…” She can sense a kind of dread in Kylo--he doesn’t want to tell her, doesn’t want her to know. Her brow knits slightly. “It can’t be something  _ that _ terrible, can it?” He squeezes her hand, her wrist.   
“I won’t let him get to you. I won’t let him have you. Don’t ask me what he wants, don’t. Believe me when I tell you I won’t let it happen.” Rey’s eyes narrow slightly.   
“Why can’t you tell me?” She probes some, but he tries to push her back.   
“Rey--”   
“You’re afraid of what I’ll do if I find out--you’re afraid I’ll leave--” He makes a frustrated, near anguished noise behind his teeth.   
“Rey!” She presses on, still, determined to know.   
“You don’t trust me to know--why not?! You need to trust me if we’re doing this, and I have to be able to trust  _ you _ !” He jerks her forward suddenly, forcing her towards his chest and the gesture is so sudden she has to brace herself with a knee on the chair so she doesn’t just fall onto him.   
“You  _ can _ trust me! Everything I’m doing, everything is for you!” Rey still doesn’t budge.   
“I want to trust you, I want to know that I can trust you--but if you keep hiding things from me then I can’t!” He leans his head up towards her, angry that she won’t give in, angry that she’s so determined despite his warnings, angry that he doesn’t know what to say to her. His fingers dig into her skin and Rey grits her teeth, scowling at him still.

“Why won’t you listen to me when I tell you these things--why won’t you believe me?” He nearly hisses it at her, but Rey won’t be deterred.   
“Give me a reason.” His eyes are dark, angry, and his voice is burning cold.   
“I’ve killed for you. I will kill for you--anyone, everyone. I’ve defied my master, taken his punishments, kept him out, all for you.” He holds her arms still, and she feels him clawing at her through the bond. “I would do whatever you ask me to--I would tear this entire galaxy apart for you.” His eyes burn into hers, fingers digging into her arms still.  _ The only creature who can trust me. The only creature in existence. Trust me, trust me, trust me, trust me…. _

Rey’s eyes narrow and her gaze darkens.   
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that--I don’t  _ want _ you to kill for me, why would I want that?” She shakes her head slowly, her voice low. “I want you--I want  _ you _ , not this creature you think you are, not what the darkness has made of you.” She leans in slightly now, her eyes on his. “You were Ben Solo once. Kylo Ren can’t change that, no matter how much he tries.” Kylo Ren’s eyes narrow and he wants to crush her to his chest, to break her under his hands, to show her Ben Solo is gone, Ben Solo will remain gone,  _ must _ remain gone--   
He feels her reaching for him through the bond, through the Force.

“I feel you, no matter what you do to hide,” she says softly, “I can feel you, just like you can feel me.”

Things seem to freeze for a moment. She runs gentle hands over him through the Force, as if smoothing his edges, pushing away the shell of darkness. He feels it ebb, and it makes him feel vulnerable, uncertain. Afraid.   
“Stop.”   
She continues, feeling dark and light mix under her palms.   
“ _ Stop. _ ”   
Rey feels as if she is pushing back a veil of solid black to find another underneath, rustling and thin but more stubborn, not pure darkness but something shadowy and shifting, something she can only see pricks of light through, almost like a night sky. She delves, reaching for one of the small pearls of light.   
“ _ Stop! _ ”   
He’s suddenly there, present in front of her, halting her in the bond. His eyes are wild and desperate, and Rey feels his confusion and rage blustering around her like storm winds. She just goes still, letting him hold her by the wrists.   
“It’s there, you know. It’s not...it’s not like mine, or Luke’s, or even your mother’s, but...the Light is still there.” Her voice is soft, and he grits his teeth, angry with her for being so damned optimistic, for bringing up his mother, for still insisting on the Light in him like this.   
“Why, Rey?” He shakes her arms, leaning close. “Why? Why are you so determined for this?!” She just looks lost.   
“For what?”   
“To be right about this, to be right about the ‘light’ in me. What if it isn’t there, Rey? What if you don’t find what you’re looking for?” Rey’s brow knits. They’ve had this conversation before.   
“I will.” He snarls at this.   
“And if you  _ don’t _ ? If you discover that the only thing here is this--this-- _ monster _ that you’re so determined to ignore--then what??” She’s silent now. Somehow, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. She thinks immediately, ‘ _ leave _ ’, but...it wouldn’t be that easy, and she knows it wouldn’t.

Her head bows and she shuts her eyes, not knowing what to say. He leans over her, feeling her uncertainty.  
“You know you could be wrong. You know the things I’ve done, you know who I am.” He cranes his head some to try and see her face, pulling her arms so that she has to tilt her head back again, has to look him in the face. “What will you do if you find out there’s no light there for you to bring to the surface?”  
Rey’s jaw sets and she stares back at him now, brow furrowing slightly.  
“What will _you_ do if there _is_?”  
“Don’t play games with me, not now. Answer me.”  
“And if I say I would leave?” His eyes are dark and his tone is dangerous, makes her shiver.  
“I would find you. I would burn the galaxy down to have you.” Rey glares.  
“We have one another _right now_. We have an entire universe between us, I can’t even comprehend all of it sometimes, but I can believe it. I can see entire star systems around us when we’re together, I can feel what you feel and see the galaxy through your eyes. We said ‘run from the First Order’, and I believed we could. Did you? You’ve brought us this far. Now I say ‘there is Light in you’, and _that's_ what you can’t believe?”

He’s silent for a moment, and Rey feels the fury begin to diminish in him.   
“All you have to do is believe it’s possible. You believe, and I believe. That’s what matters. I feel it in you--no matter how small it is or how far down. It exists.”   
“And if one day it goes out?” Their eyes are focused on one another, and Rey doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what to say, how to tell him what she feels, how to put to words what she would do.   
“Then I would push entire star systems into you just to ignite it again.”

There’s a beat, and he almost laughs, releasing her wrist to take her chin in his hand.   
“So optimistic.”   
“One of us has to be.” He searches her face for any sign of insincerity, any sign of doubt, but finds none. His grip softens and he releases her opposite wrist as well.   
“If there is no light, Rey…”   
“There is.” She takes his face in her hands now. “There is. Do you trust me?”   
His eyes search hers, uncertain, hesitant. Frightened.   
“Kylo Ren. Do you trust me?”   
He takes her wrists as her hands hold his face still.   
“Yes.”   
And he finds that he means it. That beyond reason or rationality, he trusts her.

 

In a cold room aboard the Finalizer, a holo flickers to life, large and imposing, towering high over a man in crisp apparel whose mouth is drawn in a displeased line.   
“ _ What information do you have for me, General? _ ”   
“An entire patrol unit of troopers was dispatched after Ren, and their status is reported neutralized. Ren’s doing, undoubtedly, but I believe he had help.” Supreme Leader Snoke’s knobbed fingers curl into a spindly fist.   
“ _ The scavenger girl, _ ” his voice rumbles, low and gravelly. General Hux gives a curt nod.   
“It is my assumption that he and the girl have defected. Droid surveillance reports there was a ship crash on the remote planet Ahch-To, where the troopers were found. A command shuttle was found, as well as the remains of two TIE fighters. A third was dispatched with the unit, and recently has been reported as docked for maintenance on Coruscant.” Snoke’s beady eyes narrow slightly as he listens to this, and he looks deep in thought for a long moment. Hux stays perfectly still, though he wonders what the wizened old creature is thinking.   
“ _ He is with the girl, then. _ ” Hux isn’t entirely certain why the Supreme Leader doesn’t seem more angry about this.   
“I think we can safely say so, yes. I have sent troops to Coruscant to investigate the ship and its log, but there have been no signs of Ren or the Scavenger since.” Snoke nods, slow and pensive.   
“ _ Very well. Let them try and run...They will come to us, in time. _ ”   
“Supreme Leader, if there are reports of Ren or the girl…”   
“ _ Then move to capture them. I want them both alive, General, I am tasking you with overseeing that. _ ” Hux nods again as the holo flickers back out of existence, even if it grates on him some that he can’t simply rid the galaxy--himself, mostly--of Ren without consequence. The Supreme Leader sounds confident they’ll find the both of them, but Hux has no such extra sense, and he intends still to continue searching. This game Ren and the Scavenger are playing is becoming tiring, and costly.

 

Rey thinks Theed is one of the most beautiful places she’s ever seen.   
Even the rooftops of the buildings are green--soft vines hang from eaves, bushes rustle in the gentle breezes, and the air smells like flowers and fresh water. She is in love, and her face betrays it all.

Beside her, Kylo Ren watches the delight on her face as they walk through the royal city, the sunlight bright and warm overhead. He hasn’t been to this planet in years; not since he was a child, not since...He steels himself from those thoughts. Flashes of his mother, of flowers and a statue, a somber place that she insisted they visit. He knows now what this place was, though he can’t bring himself to go there himself.   
Rey’s gotten a little ways ahead of him by now--she’s peering into store windows and mingling with other shoppers and pedestrians, and he’s glad that they have their link, otherwise he might have lost her. She seems to blend seamlessly with the Naboo, smiling and offering a hello and a pleasant response to anyone passing by. No one particularly bothers him; he seems to be a bit taller than most of the people passing, and even in his new clothes he doesn’t particularly fit in. Most of the men here wear a kind of robes, it reminds him of the old holos of the Jedi in a way. Rey fits in with her soft pink and gentle yellow robes; she looks more comfortable in them as well, but he knows she’s wearing trousers underneath. Her hair is covered again just as his is tied back, and she looks soft in the flowing fabric; he almost laughs at this--but then he thinks that really, she  _ is _ soft, just not this way, not the way this makes her seem. After a while, however, as pleased as he is to watch her like this--leaning down to let a few small children point something out to her, smiling and looking just as excited as they do--he knows they need to move along.

Ledgers will later state that two travelers were taken by private speeder into the lake country, and left with their minimal baggage. No names nor descriptions mentioned, just a brief note, and an amount of credits exchanged.

Rey is speechless when they arrive. Her mouth hangs open as she stares at the place they’ve been dropped off; a groundskeeper has already come to take their bags, and a woman who introduces herself as the housekeeper greets them on the dock. She seems impressed with the two of them; but she seems very intent about watching Rey--both of them probe some to investigate this, but the reasoning is harmless: the woman thinks Rey looks very familiar, like someone else that’s visited here before.   
The housekeeper leads them up to the beautiful place, and Kylo Ren smiles to himself.   
_ Surprised? _ He sends, glancing at Rey out of the corner of his eyes. She just manages a slight shake of her head.   
_ Beyond surprised. What...what  _ **_is_ ** _ this place? How did you find it? How are we  _ **_paying_ ** _ for this?! _ __   
_ Don’t worry about all of that. We’ll be secluded here, plenty of room, plenty of quiet. We can stay here as long as we need to, the staff doesn’t know who we are.  _ Rey’s eyes narrow slightly in confusion.   
_ Who...who  _ **_owns_ ** __ this place?

Kylo can’t help but feel the corners of his lips curl up slightly, even if it’s somewhat wistful.   
_ It actually does belong to my family, in a way.  _ Rey’s brow knits some.   
_ What do you mean ‘in a way’? Kylo what is this place? It’s...it’s beautiful, but…  _   
She feels something here, something beautiful and warm, something like love--but there is some amount of soft sadness in the air as well.

Their silent conversation is interrupted as they’re led inside, into a beautiful foyer. The housekeeper smiles at them both, bowing slightly and ushering them inside.   
“Welcome to Varykino. If you’d like, I would be more than happy to give the two of you a tour of the retreat and the grounds.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> geez don't hate me guys, sorry this was so late, and so short!
> 
> well, they're on Naboo now.  
> listen, i had to do it. i had to. everybody's all 'Vader's murder castle!' and i'm like ok but,, ,,, lake retreat.  
> doing some research on this has been ridiculous--canon material offers like nothing and the stuff from the EU has been retconned (?) so that's like welp ok  
> so i'm just...taking some artistic liberties.
> 
> also, just because of how late the past few weeks have been, i might have to revamp the update schedule. i hate to do it, since i would so much prefer to keep to a weekly schedule like this, but we'll see.   
> the best way to keep up with updates and stuff is to hit up my blog, honestly, so if you're at all interested then i'm on tumblr at <http://raindropwaltz.tumblr.com>  
> that's the main place to reach me for anything, if you feel so inclined. questions about the fic, anything c;
> 
> as always, thank you guys all so much for reading and staying with me! i'm so grateful for all the reviews and the kudos, and for you guys being so patient with the updates recently!!


	21. Seclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Retreat.  
> Softness. Peace. Contentment.

Another attack on a Resistance outpost. General Organa and the Resistance leaders have expended as much manpower as they can--just short of leaving D’Qar unguarded--but the First Order is rapidly gaining the upper hand. Leia feels desperate; Rey is missing, her son has not been seen, she has no idea where to look, where to send spies or squadrons, but even if she did…

What will they do--what will _she_ do--when Rey and Ben are found?

She wonders if they really are together, wherever they are in the vast galaxy. Intel has suggested that Kylo Ren has not been present at any of the recent battles, any of the recent attacks, but it’s been two weeks, and she doesn’t know what that means. No word from Rey, no signs of either of them. They’ve disappeared, but Leia wonders if that is for the best.  
If they _are_ found…

 

“I think this is my favorite place here,” Rey remarks idly, gazing out at the lakewater from the shaded balcony. “It’s so peaceful...and the view is beautiful.” She leans on the stone ledge, smiling at the green, flowering vines growing over the rock, and then grins up at Kylo Ren, who’s standing nearby. He’s gazing at her, though, admiring her in the sunlight filtering in through the rose-covered vines. The freckles on her face, the way she wrinkles her nose when she catches him staring, even though he doesn’t have the decency to try and hide it or look away. “All of this scenery, and what are you looking at?” He gives a languid shrug.  
“From where I’m standing, technically you’re part of the scenery.” Rey rolls her eyes at this, but laughs, shaking her head.  
“Ridiculous.” But she sees the little smile on his face, the way he’s reclining against one of the marble columns. He’s been so at peace since they arrived here two days prior...but then, so has she. "You're calling me beautiful?" She raises an eyebrow teasingly at him.  
"You said 'scenery', not 'beautiful scenery'." He quips back, and Rey's mouth forms a surprised 'o'.  
"How kriffing rude!" But she's laughing anyways.

He can’t explain it. He knows what this place is, knows what it _was_ , and he thought perhaps coming here would put him more in tune with his grandfather--and yet...the anger in him hasn’t been this sedated in...he’s honestly not sure. Kylo isn’t sure he’s _ever_ felt this relaxed. This place is warm, soft, still gently circulating energy that he knows has lingered here for many, many years. He senses them here, somehow, and he can’t explain it: his grandparents, very, very faintly. He knows Rey can sense it too, but she doesn’t know the familiarity of it like he does.

He comes up to stand next to her now, briefly eyeing the pale blue gown she’s wearing today. She’s somewhat grudgingly coming to terms with the fact that the dresses she’s got are _comfortable_ , though whenever the opportunity arises to get a bit of exercise in, she’s quick to shuck the gowns in exchange for trousers again. Today she’s relaxed and radiant, he thinks, her hair pinned out of her face, but loose otherwise, and hanging over her shoulders. The blue gown is fairly loose-fitting as well, flowing down from her shoulders and rustling around her feet. She’s been shuffling her legs restlessly under the skirt all morning, feeling the soft fabric rippling around her legs. She likes it, likes the noise and the feeling, and can’t stop herself from making it move whenever she gets the chance.   
Kylo Ren has traded in his functional-wear for something a bit more fitting to their retreat; the robes he’s got on are much more reminiscent of something he might have worn in his younger days, but if so, he won’t admit it. “It’s comfortable,” he shrugged to Rey when she remarked how very ‘Jedi’ he looks, “And clothing is just clothing.” Rey doesn’t mind it anyhow--though she is still amused at the fact he won’t stray from darker colors anyway. Deep brown and grey, today, but the colors still flatter him. His hair is loose, and Rey grins when he leans on the balcony next to her, reaching up to tug at a lock near his ear.   
“Want me to cut it for you?” He tugs his head away, snorting.   
“As if I’d trust you with that.” Her brow shoots up.   
“I might be offended by that!”   
“You like it like this anyway.” He gives her a little smirk, his eyes knowing, and Rey just laughs.   
“You’re right. Still, could stand to be a little shorter.” His eyes trail out to look over the lake surrounding the island.   
“Yours is growing quickly as well.” She twists some around her fingers as he says this, nodding.   
“It really is. I wish I knew what to do with it; maybe I’ll cut it a little…”

Kylo reaches out to run his fingers through her hair, looking somewhat pensive.  
“I could braid it for you.” Rey raises an eyebrow at him.   
“Braid it? You know how to braid?” He shrugs, looking away.   
“Well, it comes in handy to know when you’ve got hair as thick as mine,” he sniffs, but she just looks somewhat impressed.   
“I can’t braid my own hair, I used to try sometimes...there were women from the villages, you know, some of them were scavengers too, and they wore these fantastic braids and I wanted to do that, but…” she makes a vague gesture, smiling wistfully, “I never could get the hang of it.” He’s quiet for a long moment and then nods.   
“Later on.”

They stand a while longer. Rey loves watching the water--he doesn’t fully understand it, but he knows he won’t really understand it, either. He’s never wanted for water, he’s never known that kind of living. Rey looks at the water and she is enraptured, and he doesn’t disturb her from it.  
“I can’t imagine living here, really. Growing up in a place like this.” She speaks up quietly after a time, and he glances over at her. She looks...strange. Wistful, almost sad. “Everything is green and beautiful...I would never want to leave here.” He manages a quiet snort at this, eyeing the trees and all the greenery.   
“You’d be surprised.” She shakes her head.   
“This place is so...quiet. And peaceful. And...and soft,” she breathes, feeling her heart swell some, and she can’t place why. "Jakku was quiet, but not like this. There's...sound, even when it's quiet. The water, the birds...and the sun is warm, but not burning. Even the sand here is softer..." Kylo Ren reaches to brush his knuckles over the bare skin of her shoulder gently.   
“Everything here is soft.” He gives her a wry sort of smile. “At least we can enjoy it while we’re here.” Rey nods, exhaling softly.   
“At least we can enjoy it for now.”

Rey gets him to come along with her to explore the island more that afternoon. They wander down to where pale sand creates a secluded beach, and nestled in a cluster of flowering bushes as they tread onto the beach is a white stone plaque, somewhat aged, but still cared for and legible. Rey stops them to read it, even if it takes her a moment.  
“Oh--oh I know this, it’s Futhark. Ah…” She runs her fingers over the lettering, remembering the dex on Futhark, translating it into basic under her breath. “Aurek...mern...isk...dorn…” Her brow knits some, and Kylo lets her sort the lettering out, feeling suddenly anxious, almost. They haven’t had this conversation yet.   
“‘Amidala’. This says ‘Amidala’--that was your grandmother…” She sounds confused, trailing off. Kylo nods quietly.   
“Amidala’s Beach. Yes.” Rey looks up at him, puzzled and squinting some in the afternoon sunlight.   
“Amidala’s Beach? What is this place?” He takes a breath, turning to look about at the quiet lakeshore beach stretching out in front of them.   
“This was...is...a retreat. The house we are staying in now, Varykino…” Rey reads it from him, eyes studying his face.   
“...It was their retreat. Your grandparents.” He nods.   
“Yes. They came here to hide once, too, during the Clone Wars.” Rey is quiet, thinking about this.   
“Is that why you brought us here?” Now he’s silent, thinking about this. _Is_ that why? They are not his grandparents; Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala are dead, no matter how he senses them in this peaceful place. And yet...he takes a deep breath, staring out at the light glinting off of the lake water.   
“Maybe it is.”

They stand in silence for a long moment, and Kylo reaches out a light hand to run his fingers over the engraved words on the plaque. He feels a strange sort of hum in his palm, and Rey watches him quietly before gazing at the pretty blue flowers blooming in the bushes around them. He is the one to break the silence eventually, eyes still turned to the stone memorial even if they seem unfocused.  
“She was a phenomenal woman, my grandmother.” Rey turns to look at him again, curious. “I never met her. Neither did my mother. She died giving birth to my mother and uncle.” Rey feels a pang of sadness at this even if she knows it already, and her expression reflects it.   
“Oh...I’m so sorry.” She’s not sure if that’s a proper thing to say here, but it seems like the sort of thing people would want to hear. Kylo waves it off.   
“It was a long time ago. Nearly sixty years now.” Rey nods slowly, and the two of them set off walking down the beach.   
“Tell me about her. What do you know about her? Your uncle only told me some about how your grandparents met…”

They talk. Rey realizes, when he begins into a bit she’s heard before, that she likes listening to him talk. His voice is low and...something else, something she can’t put a word to, but she likes it. He pauses when she stops responding so much, glancing at her, somewhat aggravated that she’s zoning out on him.  
“I’m not the best at storytelling…” Rey snaps out of her little reverie.   
“Oh--no, no, don’t start that, I was just…” He decides to spy a bit and his brow goes up, a wicked sort of grin on his face.   
“Ohh _, I_ see…” Rey rolls her eyes, giving him a good nudge with her elbow even if she’s grinning.   
“Nosy.”   
_Aren’t_ **_you_ ** _the one who said something about ‘keeping secrets’ before…_ Rey turns to look at him, concerned she’s upset him, but finds him grinning at her and realizes he’s teasing her. It takes a moment, but the full weight of the situation hits suddenly and Rey stares at him, shaking her head wonderingly. He looks a bit perplexed, and she feels him getting somewhat self-conscious about it, but she shakes her head, smiling.   
“I’ve never seen you this...this _comfortable,_ ” she says softly, “I’m just...glad.”

He blinks at this in surprise, not having expected this response--but...she’s right. He _is_ comfortable; he feels more at peace here than he has in years _anywhere_ , and being in this place with Rey…   
Kylo reaches a light hand to her face, and Rey lets him.   
“It’s thanks to you, you know.” Rey finds herself leaning into his touch slightly.   
“I think you’re giving me a little too much credit.” He shakes his head though, his eyes firm on hers.   
“If you weren’t here now, I wouldn’t…” His mouth feels dry, and he doesn’t know what words to use. “...things would be very different.” Right now, being here with her, he feels _happy._ _  
_ But with that feeling comes the lurking dread that somehow it will be torn away again. Maybe...if he doesn’t put it into solid terms...maybe it will last just a bit longer.

That night, Kylo Ren sits with Rey in a small lounge and braids her hair as she looks through a datapad. She’s seated between his legs on a large plush cushion on the floor while he sits in an armchair, a small fire going nearby. It’s a strangely homey sort of scene--but it feels natural in the course of things here. Rey feels content and settled, resting back against the chair, her head nearly in his lap; for his part, even sitting and drawing locks of her hair through his fingers feels uncommonly in-place.  
“...and I think maybe we could go into the town nearby in a few days?” She waves the datapad some as she talks, and he looks a bit pensive.   
“For clothing?”   
“Well, and some local food. I know they serve us here but I want to see where the produce comes from. And seeing some of the shops can’t be a bad thing…” He leans down a little to give her a knowing look, raising an eyebrow.   
“You want to explore.”   
“I want to explore,” She agrees with a wistful sigh. “It’s _beautiful_ here--I’ve been reading, and the ‘net says Naboo is famous for its artistry--I want to see local craftspeople, and see more of this planet!” She tilts her head back to look up at him. “Don’t you??” He takes a breath through his nose, nudging her head back down again.   
“A few days. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can find non-secured transmission frequencies or hear any news from either side of things. It’s been nearly a week, we need to know what’s going on.” Rey gives a severe nod when he says this.   
“If it’s just minor encryption I can bypass it with the right tools. Anything more, though, and I’m useless. I only had to interrupt simple com lines before…” He nods slightly.   
“Mm. We’ll check tomorrow.” She nods now as well.   
“You think anyone’s after us…?” He exhales loudly.   
“I’m not sure,” he admits grudgingly. The bliss of being here has been...distracting. Rey stretches her legs out in front of herself.   
“We can meditate on it, you think?” He glances down at her, pausing.   
“You mean together?” She nods, looking up.   
“Our power is a lot stronger when we’re working together. If we meditate on it together I’d bet we can sense more than we could alone.” He’s quiet for a moment, and nods down at her.   
“In the morning.” She nods back, a little grin on her face.   
“In the morning.”

Over the past collection of occasions the two of them have slept together, they’ve mostly been so exhausted they collapsed into deep sleep against each other. They’ve rested, now, and so when night comes and they’re getting ready to sleep, things aren’t rushed, there is no urgency--they have _time._ Time enough to do what they like, time enough to settle and get comfortable, though. It’s taken two days to convince Rey that she can bathe every night and it won’t be a waste of water, and now she goes of her own accord--albeit grudgingly anyways. Both of them clean and damp, naked in the warm night air of the bedroom they’ve chosen, everything feels comfortable and slow. Rey stretches as she climbs onto the soft blankets and flops onto her back, exhaling deep and satisfied before she looks up at Kylo Ren. He’s standing on the other side of the room putting up the datapad he was looking at while she was in the fresher. He feels relaxed; but looking over to see Rey lounging there gazing up at him like that, he’s suddenly not as tired as he was before.

There’s a moment of quiet as they both admire one another--openly, too. Rey hasn’t ever been particularly shy about any of this, but now somehow it seems even more obvious as she stretches herself out over the spacious bed, back arching up off the blankets for a moment to stretch her back, her knees tucking up slightly. She grins at him in the low light, amusement dancing in her eyes.  
“Is this what I get for taking baths regularly now?” He snorts, strolling up to the side of the mattress.   
“Not intentionally, but knowing you’re actually clean is--”   
“You’re about to kill any kriffing chance you have of me taking care of that for you.” She nods at his steadily growing erection, and rolls onto her stomach. He lets out a chuckle, raising an eyebrow.   
“Bathing can’t be _that_ bad, even for you…” She rolls her eyes.   
“I still think it’s a waste. I hardly even did anything today…” He grins at this.   
“I guess you have been just bathing alone so far…” Rey’s brow goes up.   
“...Didn’t think that was an option. Either way, it’s not like we did much today.” She crawls towards him on all fours leisurely, pausing when she’s right in front of him. She grins a little, though, flicking her eyes up to his. “We’re _about_ to, though, I think…” Kylo just looks amused.   
“Are you saying you want to have to bathe again?” Rey shrugs almost too-innocently, grinning and leaning her head in towards his waist.   
“I didn’t say anything about a bath. I just suggested we might be about to do much more than we did during the day.” She pauses before giving just a little peck to his stomach teasingly. “Am I wrong, though…?” Kylo shudders and Rey grins smugly, watching his cock twitch near her chin. “Didn’t think so.”

Kylo Ren slides a hand into her hair and manages to wrap his fingers around the braids he wove earlier in the evening.  
“Should have waited to do these after your bath…” He mutters this offhandedly, and Rey raises a hand to ghost very light fingertips up along the length of his cock.   
“That’s what you’re worried about right now…?” He groans, bending slightly at the waist, hunching over her, fingers tightening in her hair.   
“Kriffing tease…” He hisses it out, and Rey is far too pleased with herself for it. She brushes her lips along the side of him and tastes heat and musk and desire leaking from him, and she groans softly now herself, knowing this is her doing.   
“I know you like it…” She murmurs, voice vibrating against him. She knows, she knows like he does--they can’t hide these things from one another, but instead of making things boring and predictable, knowing how much he wants her just makes Rey want him even more.

His hips shudder and jerk slightly before she’s even taken him in her mouth, and Rey chuckles, low and soft and pleased, even as his cock smears arousal over her cheek in his rush. Her hands go to his hips to steady him and her eyes flick up to his face, feeling a wave of desire shiver through her at the expression there.  
“Ohh, _Maker_ …” but it isn’t enough to distract her from murmuring it against his pulsing skin before pressing her lips to him finally.   
Kylo Ren hisses through clenched teeth and shuts his eyes, feeling her soft mouth on his cock.   
“Kriff--fuck, _Rey_ …” More a growl than a groan, Rey drags her tongue up to the weeping head of his cock and laps at the ridged underside, eyes flicking up to his face as she does, her fingers pressing into his hips. She loves this, loves seeing him like this, and as she slowly takes him into her mouth, she shows him his own expression through the bond, groaning as she does and feeling his reaction in her core. Oh _fuck_.   
They both shiver at this, his cock twitches in her mouth and Rey’s cunt is practically dripping onto the blankets now as she takes Kylo as far into her mouth as she can--but then his hand on her head buries her nose in the dark hair between his legs and Rey gags some when his cock hits her throat so suddenly. He feels her surprise and eases up some, letting her withdraw to cough and gasp for breath and try to relax her throat, but seeing the trails of fluid still hanging like spidersilk between his hard cock and her swollen lips is just too much. Rey sees a fresh spill of precum dribble down his length and she bites her lower lip, reaching to nudge him up onto the bed with her and licking her lips.   
“Up here,” she breathes, and he kneels on the mattress with her, but Rey pushes him back towards the pillows. “Lay back,” she instructs, and crawls over Kylo’s legs, leaning down over his hard and wanting cock and smirking at him as she lowers her head to his lap again.

This time when her lips wrap around him, his fingers slide back to her hair and he sends _her_ the image he sees--and Rey moans around him as she takes him almost to the hilt, careful this time with his urging hands. She goes slow at first, adjusting; he’s not small, and she thinks maybe her mouth is less accommodating than her cunt, but he sends her a flood of emotions and feelings and images that suggest he doesn’t particularly mind either way. Rey flattens her tongue against the underside of him and hums in approval, one of her hands slipping between her legs as she sucks him off.   
Kylo notices, though, feels the little jolt when she feels just how wet she’s gotten, the shiver of pleasure as her fingers find her clit, and he gives her hair a rough tug, getting her attention and nodding at her to move.   
“Shift this way.” She withdraws her mouth, giving him a perplexed look, but he cuts her off before she can say anything, his voice a sharp, commanding growl. “I didn’t tell you to stop!” Her brow shoots up when his hand presses her head back down but she lets him, anyways.   
_You’ll pay for that one,_ she sends, shifting her body to the side a bit, forming an angle out of the two of them so that she’s not over his legs anymore. He smirks to himself at this remark, but she’s still complying.   
_I’m looking forward to it._ He’s not repentant in the least. Rey gives him just the slightest touch of her teeth and he bucks under her, gasping at the sudden sharpness--it’s startling but not entirely unwelcome, and Rey feels the strange pleasure of it in her own body too, uncertain of the reason but wanting more. His fingers tighten in her hair and Rey inhales deeply, groaning low and long and slow around his cock, and Kylo sits up slightly, reaching a large hand between Rey’s legs now, brow going up when he feels her drench his fingers with the slightest touch.   
“Maker, you’re dripping,” he marvels, sliding thick, warm fingers over the wet curls between her thighs. “You like sucking my cock that much?” Rey gives him a look, but she obviously can’t deny what’s right there in front of both of them. He just looks smug, knowing this is what he’s done to her, this is what she feels even in giving him pleasure. Rey’s toes curl against the sheets when he starts rubbing a bit more deliberately at her folds, however, and when one of his warm fingers slides into her cunt she clenches around him and groans around his cock.   
_Now who’s--who’s kriffing teasing…_ she rocks her hips against his hand, needing more, still trying to focus on his cock between her lips--but when she feels him starting to twitch on her tongue he tugs at her hair and she pulls away from him, gasping and needy.   
“Force--you’re too much sometimes, you know that?” He snarls, hunching over to her, crushing their mouths together and tasting himself on her tongue. Rey is quick in shifting her position, however, nudging him back as they kiss so she can move astride his lap. They break just to draw in deep breaths, and Rey is reaching for his cock between her legs, slicking him in her arousal before guiding the head to her entrance.

Her eyes lock with his and her voice is breathless and hungry, something that makes his gut clench and his cock twitch burning in her gaze.  
“Fuck me--fuck me, fuck me--” she sounds nearly delirious, her free arm draping over his shoulder. She doesn’t need to speak what she wants, he can hear it, see it, feel it, loud and clear between them, and it spurs him into quick motion.   
Within moments Rey’s knees are hiked up around his waist and his fingers are bruising into her hips as he drives his cock into her, hard enough to make her squeal and lock up around him for a moment in pain, but it doesn’t last, and she’s grinding her hips against his, panting for breath and locking her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder and sinking her teeth into his skin. He groans, hissing at the sting of it, the scrape of her short nails on his back, but her cunt is warm and almost vice-like around him and he growls almost like some wild animal, pulling her hips down to meet his punishing thrusts. Rey cries out and gasps for him, words falling out of her lips in a near inaudible jumble, sharing in his feral urgency now. Her nails rake at his shoulderblades and she grits her teeth, struggling to contain her rapidly mounting orgasm and whimpering over the slap of their hips and the sound of their labored breathing. Kylo lets one hand leave her hip when they both feel close, gripping a fistful of her hair.   
“Mine. You’re mine, every inch of you, every bit of you. You belong to _me_ , and no one else!” His mouth is hot on her neck, biting the tender skin under her ear hard enough to leave a mark. Rey’s whole body shudders and she writhes in his arms, so close, so close, so close--   
“Yours--yours and you are mine, mine, mine--” she digs her nails into him, feeling his cock brush that wonderful spot inside of her, feeling her climax hit her like a comet. She tightens around him and that coupled with her words send Kylo Ren over the edge with her; the two of them crush their bodies together as if seeking to merge completely, and Rey makes a sound that is almost a song and almost a wail while her name tastes like bliss on his lips.

The night is young, still, and they are far from finished with one another.

Morning finds them in need of another bath, sheets sticking to them as they rest, aching and newly-battered but deeply sated. Rey shifts and her legs tremble and jerk from the ache between her thighs, her cunt still sore and raw from the night’s ‘exercises’. Kylo Ren reaches for her with an arm still languid and weakened by slumber, and Rey moves closer, feeling the tacky brush of their skin when their bodies meet. It makes her shudder and grin, remembering the cause, and she exhales loudly, pleased by all of it. His voice rasps in his still-drowsy state, not bothering to open his eyes,  
“...Sticking.” Rey nods, amused, and yawns, cracking one eye open to survey the morning-bright room. Still early, from the look of the sunlight--they forgot to close the drapes, she notes. Kylo makes a rumbling sound and shifts against her some, and Rey wets her lips some, stretching out and feeling just how extensive the aching is.   
“Good stick,” she manages, still tired herself. Kylo rumbles something else, but Rey just sighs, content and sleepy.

They wash up later on, when they can extract themselves from the sheets and one another and drag themselves one by one to the fresher.

Breakfast is fruit and some kind of juice on the stone floor of the alcove they like so much. Morning breezes bring the smell of flowers and lakewater to them as they settle across from each other, intent on starting their plans for the day.  
“I’ve done this a million times with Luke, but not like this.” Rey remarks, making a few of the fruits float up from the bowl. For a moment she looks sad, missing her stones, missing the few belongings she had, but she says nothing. This is for the better, she knows it, the two of them being together is going to be good--she _knows_ . Kylo’s eyes are knowing and focused on her when she looks up again.   
_We can find more stones for you,_ he offers quietly, but Rey just gives a little shake of her head.   
_It’s all right. I think...I think I don’t need them, now._

After some deliberation, the pair sinks into the bond, letting the Force swell up and surround them as usual. In their strange link, in the universe it creates between them, around them, they wade in that same, strange, ocean of stars, and glance around themselves now.  
_If we focus on the same thing, then maybe we can find it. Right?_ She looks up at him, unsure about this. Luke never trained her in this sort of thing--she assumes because he never really had the need to. Kylo nods some, watching stray star systems float past them.   
_It should work like that. It’s like when I….like when we looked for each other, back then._ Rey nods at this.   
_So we focus on...finding intent to track us? Our names, maybe?_ He nods slowly.   
_It’s intent, I think. It’s like looking for something in someone’s mind, you try and find clues. Anything._

They do find something, after a while. It takes time; only Kylo Ren manages to sense it at first, and he has to draw Rey’s attention to strengthen their shared perception of it. It’s a sensation--just something vague; but they press closer.  
_Not too close,_ Kylo warns, _not enough to attract anything’s attention, if there are any Force-sensitives around._ Whatever it is is shrouded properly, by doubt or anger or deliberate cover, but it seems small enough and far away enough. It is only an idea in someone’s head, nothing pressing. They sense planning on both sides; Rey wishes she could see her friends, know they’re all right, but she senses they’re alive. She would know if anything happened to them.   
Kylo’s concern is for Snoke and Hux--the rest are footnotes compared to those two. Still...he can sense nothing out of the ordinary from either. It’s enough to be suspicious, but from here, there’s nothing either of them can do, unless trouble comes to them. They are hidden, for now.

“We’ll do that again tomorrow,” Rey nods as they come out of their shared headspace, finding themselves outside on Naboo again. “That was...that was amazing.” She looks delighted, and he nods.  
“The more we work at it, the more precise we’ll get.” He gets to his feet, glancing out at the lake. “I think later we can spar.” Rey’s face lights up.   
“I’d like that!” She nods and stretches again some, the ache dulling in her limbs. “There’s plenty of space for it here, too. I ah...I think I should get a bit better with...with the saber.” She looks a bit sheepish, a bit rueful. She does miss her staff. He nods, but thinks of that strange, dim, sensation, somewhere in the galaxy.

Perhaps there are no spies, no hunters nearby--but who is thinking of tracking the two of them? He wonders who, and where.   
And which side of this war they are on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a day late and a dime short--i feel like that's me in a nutshell. @ v@;  
> not the most 'exciting' chapter, but a very welcome bit of relaxation for these two. after like 20 chapters of cutting them off every time i think they deserve it. right?  
> right?  
> and i mean, what better place than this? varykino...i'm so in love with naboo and the lakehouse it's a little ridiculous. being here does give me the opportunity to make some fun parallels, though ;)
> 
> thank you guys for reading, as ever<3 i hope you're still hanging in there with me!! <3


	22. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getaway.  
> Turbulence. Tenderness. _Happiness._

The dreams have been coming for three nights now.

Collectively, of course. Rey and Kylo Ren find themselves feeling more connected as the days pass--they realize they finish one another’s sentences, sometimes speak for each other even. It doesn’t even feel like either of them is being interrupted, just...as if...their words are coming from their other mouth. Sometimes it feels hard to differentiate who is who, when they let their minds just drift.

Such a thing might have terrified either of them, months ago. Kylo Ren thinks about it and knows he would have shuddered at the thought, but somehow...it feels comfortable.  
Rey seems perpetually at ease as well, never bothered by the strange back-and-forth of speaking or the preemptive suggestions, the responses to things she’s just beginning to think of saying or asking. It’s nice, not to have to put things into words all the time. Nice knowing that someone understands her so fully, without her having to explain or struggle with wording. Kylo Ren agrees, silently. Rey understands without speaking, without needing to pause and question anything. They flow together effortlessly, and neither of them can complain.

The dreams, however, are troubling.

It’s been a week and a half on Naboo now, in Varykino. The staff are fond of Rey, even if they behave quite professionally around Kylo Ren. Just as the middle of the second week approached, the dreams, the nightmares, started.  
Simple enough, the first night. Kylo Ren knows these dreams, the dreams of dark and cold, endless black, seeped in anger and pain and turmoil that threatens to swallow him whole. He writhes against the cold unforgiving _gnawing_ of the dark, the whispering blackness with millions of eyes and mouths and none at all. He wakes in a cold sweat, heart pounding in his chest, teeth grit with a rage he can’t explain, a pain that makes him shake to his bones. He throws the blankets off of himself and nearly throws himself off of the bed, hunching over the side and taking his head in his hands, trying to stop the thrumming of his blood in his ears, trying to stop the rush of anger and panic and fear.  
Rey’s hand is warm and light on his back, her voice tender and sweetened by sleep.  
“Shhh...come back to sleep…” She murmurs, eyes still closed. He isn’t even sure she’s awake, and yet he feels the jarring energy begin to abate. He turns slowly, gazing down at her sleeping form; she usually is so still when she sleeps, whatever position she winds up in. She’s on her back, hair mussed over the pillows under her, the sheets still wrapped around her but for her reaching arm. She looks peaceful, she looks warm--and slowly, he takes her hand in his, hoping his clammy palms don’t wake her, and settles into the sheets with her again. He watches her sleep for a long time, her hand in his, arm held to his chest, and when he feels more confident that she won’t feel his heart pounding against her, he pulls her into his arms, burying his face into her hair. Rey, pliant with slumber, curls in against him, her back to his chest, and murmurs something unintelligible in her sleep. She doesn’t protest, doesn’t move away, just sleeps--but her fingers curl around his, and she sighs very softly, and Kylo Ren slowly slips into unconsciousness to join her again. They won’t speak of this in the morning.

Rey dreams of noises and lights, she tries to make out voices, images, but they won’t quite come, not as she wants them. She feels as if she is being told something, shown something, but it isn’t quite manifested yet. Instead of frustrated, however, she just feels patient-- _it will come_ , something tells her. _Be calm, let it come to you as it will._ She knows this voice, has known it for a very long time now, soft and encouraging, and she listens. In the morning, she wakes to Kylo Ren wrapped around her, and she slides from his grasp to meditate on the veranda.

The second night is more tumultuous.

Rey’s dreams are of the past. The voices become more clear, the lights and shapes turn into faces, and places.  
She sees blinding sunlight and fears she is on Jakku again--but there are buildings, a city, and it is not familiar to her. She runs along buildings in the sand and then it is night, and there are great stone cliffs, hutts of bone and skin, and things tumble and change, she can hear screams and grunts, shrieks and the blazing, slicing hum of a lightsaber...but over it all, she hears shouting, anguished and frantic. _Anakin--Anakin, no!_ She turns her head to try and see, but the scene changes, and there are two figures sitting near a workbench, their faces shrouded from view. A female holds a male, hunched and huddled in on himself. Her long hair is deep brown and curling, and Rey knows her, somehow.  
_To be angry is to be human…_ the world shifts again, but Rey can hear soft, muffled sobs until they fade away. She is here, on Naboo, then--two figures embrace and Rey feels warmth all through her body; sweet and gentle and overpowering, making her skin tingle with happiness. _Love_ , she thinks, _this is what love must feel like_.  
But it changes...something is looming, darkness begins to creep in, Rey can feel it. The dream starts to fade out again, becoming less coherent, and Rey chases after the bits and pieces that she can get clearly, but to no avail. She is finally jarred out of her sleep completely by something else, though, something cold and terrifying, a hand, a voice, that jolts her awake, and she knows where it’s coming from.

Kylo Ren is thrashing in his sleep, clutching at his head and whimpering, gasping, damp with sweat, his eyes wet with tears even in sleep. Rey is desperate, shaking him and shouting at him to wake up, reaching into the Force for him even.  
“Kylo! Kylo, wake up! Please!” She doesn’t know what’s wrong, what he’s dreaming--she’s shut out, and he feels cold and he is _shaking,_  and Rey pounds on his arms and chest, frantically trying to wake him.

He dreams of the darkness again, swallowing him whole, drowning him in pain and anguish, in memories of blood and fire and rage, loneliness and fear. He sees his mother, his uncle--faces in the dirt, faces burning away to ash. They scream at him in rage and pain, skeletal hands reaching for him, clawing at him to drag him into the pyres with them.  
_You belong with us!_ Thousands of voices hiss and screech and scream all at once. _Warlord! Darksider! Jedi-killer! Father-killer!_ And there, there it is, that burning red, red all around, red on his face and red in his father’s eyes before he falls, but Han Solo’s reaching hand clutches at his throat and pulls him into that long, endless fall with him, and there is nothing that can save him, nothing that can save either of them, darkness is coming up to claim him again just as he has known it will one day, its millions of hands and teeth tearing at him as he falls--

_Kylo!_

A voice, her voice, like a beam of light, but he can’t reach it, not quite, he tries and tries. He struggles to free his arms, legs, anything to reach her, but he cannot--still, Rey, Rey, Rey, he wants her, wants Rey, wants that light she exudes, and if he cannot climb to reach it then he will pull it down into the dark with him--Rey is his, Rey belongs to him, even in the dark she would be his, no one could take her from him if she joined him here, if she let the dark take her too...

In the waking world, Rey is recoiling, feeling the darkness suddenly reach out to grab her, but as she whips backwards he wakes abruptly, sitting up to reach for her. Rey’s eyes are wide and she looks confused and worried, but she sees yellow, yellow, bright and burning in his eyes and her stomach turns and she skids back on the bed some, staring at him as he reaches for her, his voice hoarse and confused, as if unsure if he’s awake or not.  
“Rey...Rey, come here…” But Rey doesn’t move.  
“What are you doing--what the fuck is wrong with you, you wouldn’t wake up--what are you doing?!” He’s leaning for her, reaching out to try and grab her arms, and Rey wrenches away. “Stop it! What’s wrong with you?! I was terrified--you wouldn’t wake up! What’s wrong?!” But Kylo looks strange, not himself, trying to grab her still and bring her to him, just aggravated when she pulls away. Roughly now he latches onto her wrists and pulls her to him swiftly, and Rey looks furious, struggling with her dulled strength to get out of his tight grasp. He’s larger and heavier, still, and when he pins her with her legs under the sheets, she gnashes her teeth as he leers over her.  
“I’m not letting you go--you belong to me, Rey. Right here, with me--” But Rey manages to tug a hand free and slams a fist into his jaw, knocking him off-balance long enough for her to tuck her legs up out of the sheets to kick him off of her. He rolls onto his side and Rey is up off of the bed now, breathing hard and eyeing him furiously, warily.  
“What the _fuck_ is going on?!” She barks, watching him shake his head some and cradle his jaw where she’s hit him. He turns to look at her, sitting up in the middle of the rumpled bedding, and there’s a bizarrely placid look on his face.  
“You are mine, Rey. You know it. You belong to me--the two of us should be together. We will be; no matter what.” Rey’s brow knits and she frowns at him.  
“What are you kriffing talking about?? Stop acting like this, what’s gotten into you?!” She reaches into the Force, reaching for him, trying to see if she can sense anything--but as soon as she touches him through the bond, things change.

Kylo Ren shakes his head again, rubbing at his forehead and looking confused, blinking furiously and raking a hand through his hair. His whole posture shifts, he looks aggravated and rumpled, and when he looks back at Rey his eyes are dark and normal again.  
“What the _fuck..._ did you _hit_ me?!” Rey looks stunned.  
“I--what--what is going _on_ with you?! You wake me up because of some nightmare, and then you start acting insane!” He stares.  
“What?”  
“I don’t--I’m going to find another bedroom.” He freezes up, hurriedly getting off the bed now to go to her.  
“Rey, what--stop, what happened??” He reaches for her but she stays away, and he doesn’t push for now. She eyes him dubiously, frowning.  
“I don’t know what got into you, I don’t know what you were dreaming, but that…” She shakes her head, staring at him hard. “That wasn’t _you_.” He’s at a loss.  
“What..?” Rey just looks angry.  
“You’ve been fine lately--you’ve been _happy_ lately, what is it?? You had a nightmare--”  
“--I have nightmares all the time.”  
“ _Not like this_!”

Her voice is loud enough to make him jerk away slightly in surprise. She lurches forward as she says it, and he takes a step back on instinct.  
“Not like this, not nightmares like this one. I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t get in, I couldn’t wake you up, and then you were just...you felt _cold_ , and I felt it, I felt it like I was just...touching it with my hands. I felt _darkness_ , Kylo, and when you finally woke up you were…” She shakes her head, stepping back, arms wrapping around herself. “You weren’t yourself.” His eyes widen some at this and he moves forward just some.  
“Rey--did I hurt you?? What happened--I don’t remember waking up, not until just now when you were standing here--please…” She won’t move closer, and resists his reaching hands, and he feels frustrated and desperate. “Rey, please! I swear to you, I would never hurt you!” She glares at him, though, keeps her arms around herself and tries to calm her heartbeat. She can’t place it, but what happened shook her; the strange expression on his face, the yellow in his eyes. The cold that she felt in him, on him. If he wasn’t himself, then what happened? She lets out a shaky exhale.  
“I know...I know you wouldn’t. But I…” She steels her gaze again. “What. Happened?”

She agrees to sit. He tells her about the dream, and she sees his trembling hands, the slump of his shoulders. She sees his demeanor shift; this frightened him, just as it frightened her. Finally, Rey goes back to him--she leans over where he sits in an armchair near the bed and takes his face in her hands, her expression sad.  
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I acted like that, I shouldn’t have overreacted.” He immediately reaches to hold her arms, and she nearly flinches when she recalls his grasp earlier, but this is different, so different, and when he cradles her hands to his head, she slips onto the armchair with him, settling onto his lap and cradling his head to her chest, resting her cheek on his hair and letting him hold onto her.  
His arms hold her to him, anchoring himself on her, fingers pressing into her back some. He _clings_ to her, afraid of feeling like he did in the nightmare, afraid of feeling as if he can’t reach her. Rey isn’t used to comfort, but somehow she knows what to do, knows what to offer him. Her fingers slowly rub his scalp and she lets him hold onto her like this, drawing her own comfort from it as well. He is himself again--not whatever creature took hold earlier, and not Kylo Ren, not right this moment. Clinging to her, he is Ben Solo, and she knows. She strokes his hair, and she knows.

They fit together in a way Rey is terribly unfamiliar with, a way that she knows, deep down, she’ll never fit with anyone else. There is a sudden intrusive thought that this may be all the time they have, that this will be fleeting, that this embrace, this belonging, this...this _perfect fit_ right now in this moment will be all she ever knows of it. Her fingers curl into Kylo’s hair and her arms tighten around him. He feels it, the flicker in her, and his arms tighten around her, shifting against her until their embrace is almost too tight, and they both feel as if it’s hard to breathe, but not from the pressure. Rey buries her face in Kylo Ren’s hair, and he presses his face to her skin, and they try to breathe, shuddering with the effort.  
_This won’t be the last._  
_This_ **_can’t_ ** _be the last._ _  
_ They clutch one another and finally, sleep claims them both right there in the armchair. They drift off in the same tight hold, and this time Rey pushes into the Force, pulls him into the bond with her, and holds onto him as they sleep. He is surprised, but curls up into her grasp--she feels protective, defensive; he’s not...used to this, someone holding him this way, and there is a part of him that wants to push her away and recoil from this show of weakness, but Rey is so warm and _good_ that he can’t bring himself to do it.

The dreams are a shared effort after that. Rey refuses to let darkness cloud anything more that night, and visualizes a sort of barrier against all of it. Her hands stroke Kylo’s hair and back and she holds him protectively, tightly, tenderly.  
Rey wonders, very quietly, somewhere in her mind far and hidden away, if this is what it is to love someone. To want to protect them no matter what it entails, to be willing to use herself as a shield for them, to want to keep them, keep their _happiness_ safe.  
She wants to keep him safe. She wants him to be happy.  
Rey thinks back to the day before they ran off, talking to Luke.

_“Rey...Rey, are you in love with him?”_

She didn’t know then.  
_I don’t know now,_ she thinks, nestling close to Kylo’s sleeping form, _but I don’t want this to end._

 

Kylo Ren wakes before she does, and carefully moves them to the bed. He cradles Rey in his arms, not wanting to break the contact between them, not wanting to wake her. She looks peaceful, happy--he knows it is because of her that his dreams were pleasant for the rest of the night. It takes some care and a bit of the Force, but he gets them onto the mattress and curls up around her in the real world, cuddling her to his chest, wrapping himself around her as if to cover her from the rest of the world.  
His Rey. His precious light girl--he would do anything for her, would give anything for her. His partner...and he knows, he _knows_ , she is his happiness.  
He holds her close, buries his face in her hair, and he knows.  
Without Rey, the dark would consume him.

When Kylo Ren wakes next, he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep.  
Rey is gone, but he feels content, still. There is a strange somber feeling over the room, but he does not feel so afraid, or so unsettled. He wants Rey--he wants very much to be near Rey, and tugs a pair of loose trousers on to set off to find her.  
They shared a dream before he woke again, he knows. An old dream, nearly forgotten, from long, long ago. Before all of the deep darkness, before Kylo Ren.  
A blue dream, cool and quiet. The smell of rain and flowers and faraway smoke, the sounds of water and something quiet and gentle, a voice on a breeze.  
A beautiful woman, with sad eyes, and flowers in her hair.

When he finds Rey, she is outside, down wading in a lagoon of the lake under a copse of trees. It is raining today; a light, gentle rain that beckons rather than repels, and Rey has wandered out in one of her soft house gowns, the flowing fabric clinging to her body and rippling out around her thighs in the water like a white cloud. Her arms are outstretched, and there is a strange sort of arc over her head where the rain isn’t touching her. He watches, surprised at this, watching Rey manipulate the rainfall like this. A small sort of trick--something so harmless and gentle--but a feat of the Force he hasn’t shown her, something he hasn’t expected to catch her managing.  
A breeze blows through, teasing the drooping limbs of the trees dipping into the lakewater and misting rain around the Force-barrier into Rey’s face and onto her hair, and she laughs in delight. Kylo Ren catches himself smiling at her, having paused to watch her, and she notices him there after a moment longer. Rey turns to face him, her expression radiant.  
“Kylo!” She glances at the halo of clear, rainless, air around her head, “Look at this!” she laughs in delight, and he treads down to the water’s edge to watch her.

He watches her wave her hands in slow patterns, making the rain flow with her as it falls. She looks enchanted, and turns to look back at him again.  
“Don’t want to get wet?” She raises an eyebrow, grinning teasingly. He rolls his eyes, wading a little ways into the lake. The rain on the still water is a quiet orchestra around them, and Kylo can feel the Force swirling almost viscous through the air closer to Rey, and when he walks into the cloud of it it feels like it washes over him and makes his skin tingle with the sensation. The halo of dry air extends to him when he nears Rey, and he glances up a moment, watching the rain fall above them and ‘plink!’ off of the unseen barrier of energy.  
“Interesting trick.”  
“I didn’t...know I could manipulate the Force like this,” Rey is breathless, making the rain shift and swirl around them. “It’s so easy, it’s like...I don’t know. Like I barely have to even try.” Kylo snorts, lips quirking up some at this.  
“You should try something a little harder, then.” He widens the dry patch over them, so they can watch the rain rolling off and forming tiny waterfalls at the edges of the barrier. Rey grins at him.  
“Like what, then?” He shrugs easily, shifting some on his feet in the mud of the lake floor. Rey takes a breath through her nose and focuses on the Force, on the energy around them, the flow of water and air, the feeling of power that always comes from being so close to Kylo. He feels it, feels her energy merging with his, and he steps closer to her, the two of them just inches apart and facing each other. The water around their legs starts to move, but he can’t bring himself to look away from her face--she’s shut her eyes, deep in concentration, and she seems to radiate light even in the physical world. He remembers this sight, her face as she focuses, eyes closed, loose curls plastered to the edges of her face, and now he does what he could not do back then.

Kylo Ren opens himself to her current of energy, lets their two forces intertwine and takes her hands in his, lacing their fingers. Her palms are cool and slick against his, still warm from being inside, and she smiles as lakewater spirals up to rush around their waists like a slow, controlled cyclone. When Rey opens her eyes again she laughs, seeing his eyes on hers, remembering what he remembers. This is an infinitely better version, she thinks, fingers curling around his. The cone of water around them fans out some and seems to shudder and spray a bit with her laughter, and Kylo Ren even chuckles at this. Rey looks amazed at the sound, gazing at him fondly, memorizing the expression on his face. _Ben Solo,_ she thinks, and releases one of his hands so she can stroke the side of his smiling face, _this is the face of Ben Solo._  
_Maybe you’re right._ Rey starts some, unaware he’s been listening, but he says nothing else, neither through the bond nor verbally, just brings his hand up to rest over hers.  
_Your smile is beautiful._ She offers him a smile in return, thumb brushing his cheek gently. _I wish you’d show it more often._ In response, his smile widens just slightly.  
_For you, I just might._

 

The next few days are fairly quiet--the two of them find quiet, secluded fields to spar in, and take hours in the afternoons roving over the lush green valley laughing and swinging their swords at each other. Rey is getting better with the single blade, but her slip-ups have presented them with the opportunity to further investigate how far their strange healing abilities go. It takes...some more extensive effort than they were initially prepared for; Kylo winds up breaking a vase in frustration and Rey has to have one of the maids fetch her some bandages to wrap up her shoulder the first time. The second try is better; the angry red singe on her leg slowly fades after a few minutes, but her abrasions are more or less unaffected until they press themselves far enough that it drains the both of them fairly quickly. They agree to nap in the field after that, muttering that they know what they’re looking for now, so of course it will go better next time...of course it’ll work next time…

They end up taking a boat to one of the nearby towns early in the day after this second try. Rey’s hair is braided back from her face to cascade down her back and she is in pale yellow and white silk, sunny and sweet. She’s coaxed Kylo into brown and tan, and he’s hardly even bothered by it; they let the boatman drive them on and they stroll up the dock and into the small town together. Rey takes his arm when they get further down the little lakeside street, mimicking passing pairs of people, and he doesn’t argue. They look as if they belong there, as if they are anyone else on the streets of this small, quaint village in the lake country. Rey feels comfort in the both of them, and her fingers find Kylo’s as they walk, passing storefronts and cafés. They buy tiny, flavorful pastries, and say hello to people they’ve seen on past visits to the marketplace here. No one looks at them strangely, no one’s eyes linger just that moment too long. No one recoils from them, or thinks of them as anything but passers-by on the streets. How strange, to be _normal_. How very different from the rest of their lives, how _welcome_ the feeling is.

“The core here is hollow. Naboo’s core, anyway. It’s like a cave system, all filled with water.” Rey looks enraptured, listening to this.  
“How...that sounds so amazing. Do...can you actually go into the caves, into the core??” Kylo’s smile crinkles some at this.  
“It isn’t strongly advised.” Rey’s brow goes up.  
“Is the water that hard to navigate, or are the caves too small, or…?” He shakes his head.  
“No--well...I don’t know everything about them, I haven’t been. But the native creatures--er, Gungans, the Gungans--that live underwater on this planet sometimes navigate through the core for travel. I’ve read there are very large and very dangerous creatures that live in the core system, though.” Rey looks fascinated.  
“Really? I can’t imagine…” Kylo laughs at this, though, and Rey smiles.  
“There were huge creatures on Jakku too, weren’t there?” Rey snorts some, nodding and shrugging.  
“Oh sure. Just before I left there was a nightwatcher worm after BB-8; they’re huge…” She gestures with her free hand, and he goes a bit quiet when she mentions the droid. Rey doesn’t particularly pay it any mind, though. “I bet if they live in the water, they’re much different than nightwatcher worms, though.” He nods at this, smiling.  
“Probably so--”  
There’s a very loud commotion that interrupts him, however, and the both of them immediately tense up, hearing screams. A few yards down the causeway, a woman in sweeping robes and a headdress is lurching over the railing towards the lake, reaching towards the water in vain and screeching loudly. A handful of people have come to gawk as what looks like a pair of servants are pulling the woman back, but she continues to yell in distress.  
“My Willak! Oh someone save him! Oh no, please someone save my little Willy!” Kylo looks about as disinterested in the scene as a person acceptably can in such a public setting, but Rey is immediately running for the water, vaulting herself over the fence between the streetway and the water and crashing into the lake loudly. There’s even more commotion after this, people are going to watch at the railing and Kylo feels a mixture of frustration and very great reluctance in going after her. He pauses at the fence himself, watching Rey swim out to where a very aggravated and very loudly hissing loth-cat is splashing angrily in the lakewater. He rolls his eyes at this and exhales loudly, shaking his head some. Of course. A loth-cat.

Rey swims out with some effort--the fabric of her dress is definitely not something she was counting on being this heavy--but she’s determined. She reaches the little hairy ball of fury and pauses a moment, trying to figure out just what the kriff to do with this thing.  
“Er...come here now, be a good...whatever you are…” She reaches towards the thing some and it swipes at her furiously, hissing and screeching at her, and Rey recoils, looking disgruntled. “Well all right then, I’m trying to help you, you know!”  
Back on dry land, the loth-cat’s owner is cheering Rey on animatedly, clutching a handkerchief in one hand to her face. Kylo thinks she looks utterly ridiculous, but then that seems to be the sort of over-the-top behavior that most people that rank as ‘nobles’ exhibit. He’s not terribly surprised, mostly he just wants her to shut up--though Rey’s struggling with the hairy little cat is more amusing to watch. She’s managed to tear off the sort-of cape on her gown and used it to try and grab onto the animal, but the loth-cat is still struggling and ends up kicking away from her, kicking lakewater into her face and making Rey rear back and sputter at the spray. Kylo snorts to himself, and even laughs when the cat starts to swim, on its own, back towards the shore, spurred on by trying to get _away_ from Rey.

Something’s the matter, though; suddenly Rey looks startled and Kylo feels a sharp knife of fear plunge through him--Rey’s being pulled under by something, and she’s afraid, panicking in the water.  
Within seconds, Kylo’s dived in after her, swimming straight for where he can see her struggling underwater. Her gown has weighed her down, but there are the tendrils of an underwater plant tangled around her legs. She’s panicking, and her panic is filling her lungs with water, he can feel it like it’s his own chest. He goes for her legs and tries to calm her at the same time, ripping at the water weeds holding her fast; the leaves are sticky and cling to his arms as they clung to her legs and her gown, but he rushes to free her. She’s tiring quickly, but he’s determined to get them both out of the water--Rey can’t hold her breath any longer, though, and she coughs into the water, feeling lightheaded and afraid.  
_Kylo--I can’t--I can’t...breathe…_ Her voice fades and he is beginning to panic himself, wrapping a tight arm around her and trying to drag her to the surface. Her heartbeat is slowing, though, and he feels her energy starting to drain, and his heart thunders in his chest, fear bringing a rushing sound into his ears. No--this isn’t how things will end, and he refuses to let Rey go like this--Kylo reaches into the Force, through their bond and into her body, merging with her and using what strength he has to force a cough into her chest. Rey’s body seems to convulse underwater, water expels out of her mouth and Kylo pushes his own breath into her, his consciousness in both of their bodies as he drags her up with him.

They both surface at the same time; the lake water is placid around them otherwise, but Rey and Kylo both are breathing hard, gasping the air back into their lungs. Rey just floats there in front of him for a long moment after she’s come back to her senses, her hair plastered over her head, eyes wide, face pale. She stares, hard, still stunned from what just happened, unable to move but for her legs, very slowly and tiredly treading water now. Kylo stares back, still all nerves and adrenaline, his body shaking but only slowly able to move, even to shake the shaggy, wet hair away from his face.

Slowly, he closes the distance between himself and Rey, drifting until finally he can take her face in his hands, staring at her still. His face is just as pale as hers, his heart pounding despite his efforts to calm down. _She’s safe. She’s safe, she’s safe…_

Rey is trembling, her heart slamming against her ribs so hard she swears he can hear it. Her mouth opens some to speak but she can’t force anything out, shutting her eyes finally as his trembling fingers slowly, gently, slide into her wet hair, over her braids, cradling her head in his palms. He is afraid--was afraid--afraid of losing her, afraid of feeling her slip away from him...but Rey is in awe. Nearly drowning has her shaken, but…he reached into her and breathed his breath into her lungs, made her heart keep beating--all through the Force. She is breathless and amazed, and when his mouth presses hard to her forehead, her hands weakly take his wrists, holding him there.

His breath trembles even, and he presses the kiss to her forehead so firm and so long that Rey wonders if it’ll leave a mark, but she doesn’t care. When he finally pulls back, he’s breathing hard still and Rey swears she feels something warmer than lake water drop onto her cheeks, but she won’t open her eyes, she just holds his wrists and leans in when his forehead presses against hers. He doesn’t need to say anything, neither of them do.

_Safe, safe, safe, alive, breathing, can’t lose you–-_

Rey just shakes her head, feeling the sensation flow through the bond.

_Saved me, saved me, strong together, we’re strong together…_

Her thumbs rub over his forearms and she tilts her head back slowly, her nose brushing over his cheek, searching for his lips.

_We’re strong together, we won’t lose each other._

They aren’t aware of their surroundings until a shrill voice calls out to them from nearby and stops them from doing anything further.  
“Oh goodness, there you both are! I thought you may have drowned!” Both Kylo Ren and Rey’s heads jolt in the direction of the voice and see the woman from before, the woman with the loth-cat, leaning over the fence at them, flanked by a handful of other onlookers. Rey exhales loudly and Kylo just weakly takes her waist underwater, slowly guiding them back to the shore.

The woman is Chima Bellori, a Pantoran with pale violet hair and a pair of large golden downturned eyes rimmed with gold facial tattoos. She stands nearly Rey’s height; her clothing is layered and ornate, a golden headdress settled on her long hair. Older than both of them from the look of it, but certainly no less animated, Chima rushes to the both of them as her servants help them out of the lake, and Rey notes that the ornery loth-cat is clutched in Chima’s arms, still wet as it is. She notes, also that it looks much less murderous now.  
“Oh--oh thank goodness, just look at you two!” Rey and Kylo glance at one another a bit and manage to shrug some, but Chima is clapping her hands at her servants. “Bring the craft around please!” She turns to the soaked couple again and looks apologetic. “That was _so_ terribly wonderful of you to rush in after my sweet Willy like that--” she brandishes the loth-cat as if it’s not a little kriffing hell-beast that tried to take Rey’s hand off, “I’m absolutely in your debt--I’d love for the two of you to come to my estate here and have dinner!” And just like that, they’re being ushered into a private speeder and given towels before they can protest. Chima settles in across from them and takes a towel to rub at Willak, still chattering away at them.  
“I am Chima Bellori, of course,” she states matter-of-factly, as if they ought to know this, but then she gestures at them. “And the two of you? I would very much like to know who it is I can properly thank for saving my sweet little Willy-nilly.”

Rey immediately thinks this woman might be the most annoying person she’s ever met, but then she’s not sure if that’s her thought or Kylo Ren’s thought, and Rey is still cross with ‘Willy-nilly’ as it is.  
“I’m Veré, and this is my--”  
“--I'm her cousin, Set.” Kylo Ren finishes this without hesitation, and Rey goes carefully blank, though in the bond the word drifts across with a very notable question mark.  
_Cousin?_  
Kylo nearly shrugs, and Chima regards them quizzically for a moment before nodding.  
“Of course, of course--your parents must have quite the strange sense of humor for those names, and to _cousins_ …” Rey gives Kylo a look that says she is not one-hundred-percent happy with this backstory he’s given them, but he clears his throat some, nodding.  
“You have no idea.” But this seems to settle things. Chima laughs gaily and Rey isn’t satisfied, but she intends to press further later on.

Chima has a summer home here, it turns out, a ways from Varykino but still in the lake country. Rey may think Chima is too chatty (She hasn’t stopped talking! Rey wonders how people can possibly have so much to say!) but she can’t deny the woman has a lovely taste in greenery. The gardens surrounding the estate are lovely--and the estate itself is further inland than Varykino, not quite so large either, but then Chima explains that it’s quite enough for her and Willak, and that her husband hardly ever visits as it is. He’s a public official on Pantora, she explains, and Rey has no idea what this means but Kylo nods sagely and she just follows suit anyway. They’re given fresh clothing once they’re inside--Rey isn’t fond of the thicker material of the dress she’s put into, but then she’s a guest, so she says nothing.

Dinner is lovely as well--Rey supposes she can put up with all of the talking if it’s for this. Kylo Ren is doing stunningly well dealing with Chima’s constant conversation, really, though after a cup or two of wine, even Rey is talking more. Chima is just happy to have guests, and after dinner as the three of them sit on one of Chima’s verandas to talk a bit longer, their hostess gives them a very pleased sort of sigh.  
“Oh this has just been so delightful, meeting the both of you--I have guests often enough, you know, but I do love meeting new people. You said you both were trying to get out a bit more at dinner, however, and that’s given me an idea!” Rey blinks, and Kylo is mildly concerned this might mean Chima is going to ask them to stay the night, but Chima claps her hands together, smiling brightly. “How would the both of you like to accompany me on a trip soon?”  
There’s a small beat, and Rey’s brow goes up.  
“A trip?”  
“Oh yes! Offplanet, my husband is entering one of his beloved gambling tournaments, and I can’t stand going to Canto Bight alone, it’s hideously boring.” Kylo looks a bit uncertain, but Rey is curious now.  
“Canto Bight?”  
“Yes! It’s a casino, you know, all sorts of…” she gives a somewhat dismissive wave of her hand, “‘Games,’ and the like. Gellan does love his gambling--and I need to make sure he doesn’t gamble our fortunes away!” Kylo’s voice is careful, slow, thoughtful.  
“When...are you leaving? And how long is the trip?” Chima smiles brightly.  
“I’ll be off in three days--it’ll just be a standard day or two at the most! Just a nip over for the tournament, and then right back again! Of course, if you both need to leave sooner I would be more than happy to arrange transportation--I know these silly games of his can run a bit long from time to time…”  
_I think we should go,_ Rey sends through the bond without even breaking eye contact with Chima.  
_And why is that?_  
_I don’t know. I just...I have a feeling. We should go._ There’s a groan even in the bond.  
“I think that sounds fine--you wanted to see someplace new, didn’t you Veré?” Rey nods, looking satisfied.  
“I certainly do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm honestly more surprised than anyone that this update is actually on time.
> 
> a few things:  
> \- i was thinking rey's backstory/lineage in this might be at least a little obvious by now but if not then oops  
> \- you think space chamomile tea will help with creepy darkside dreams?? hmm.  
> \- if you follow me on tumblr, part of this chapter might be a little familiar. i cheated, i wanted to write that scene for a bit so i just went for it.  
> \- canto bight! welcome to that famous line in the sand that some authors don't cross, the one marked 'things not in the canon material yet'. i'm not good at following those kinds of unspoken rules.
> 
> as always:  
> thank you all so much for reading. i hope you're enjoying the story, thank you for sticking with me or joining in, even! i appreciate every single one of you and all of your feedback. <3


	23. Frolic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intimacy.  
> Simplicity. Excitement. Gathering clouds...

Rey glances at Kylo Ren on their way back to Varykino that night and raises an eyebrow, just studying him for a moment in silence. He takes a deep breath finally and glances away.  
“Go on.”   
“Cousins?? We’ve just met the woman, and you tell her we’re _cousins._ You couldn’t come up with anything else.” He looks a bit flustered suddenly, frustrated at something.   
“Well what were _you_ going to say?”   
“My husband.”

There’s a beat of silence and he almost misses a step, but then his brow knits.  
“We don’t have rings.”   
“Rings?” She looks puzzled.   
“Yes, rings. Or...bands, even tattoos, some cultures do.” Rey blinks.   
“Why would _that_ matter?” He stares at her as they climb the steps up to the dimly-glowing mansion in the soft light from the stars in the Naboo night sky.   
“Because it would prove that we’re married.” Rey’s brow knits some.   
“Why would we have to _prove_ that to Chima? She didn’t ask for proof we were _cousins…_ ” He finds he can’t argue with this, and that just frustrates him further. He stalks into the house ahead of Rey, and she follows him with folded arms, waiting for the inevitable. Finally, once they’re towards the back of the house, near the bedroom they’ve been using and their favorite veranda, he slams a hand into the door frame he’s passing through, and Rey rolls her eyes.   
“Oh stop--”   
“Stop--stop--acting so kriffing _smug_!” He snaps, and Rey just gives him a look as he storms out onto the veranda. She leans against the doorframe, watching him pace to the rail and stop.   
“Will you calm down?” She hates when he gets like this, but she is becoming more tolerant. She knows he is trying--she knows that she has outbursts herself sometimes. His fingers clench some on the stone rail.   
“I just...I don’t know why I said it.” He grits out finally, and looks positively petulant about it. Rey sighs, rolling her eyes fondly and strolling out to join him.   
“I don’t really care all that much, but won’t it look odd--two cousins on a romantic getaway?” His lips form a thin line.   
“I wasn’t _thinking_ about it that hard.” She leans on her elbows over the rail, breathing in the night air before she thinks of something and turns to look at him quizzically.   
“ _Do_ you have a cousin? Any cousins?” His brow furrows further and he stares out at the lake, a cold knife slicing up in his gut.   
“Maker forbid,” he mutters, and Rey snorts some, but after a moment she leans against him a bit.

“Might not be so bad.” She remarks quietly, staring up at the stars. “Having family, anyways.”

He watches her silently out of the corner of his eyes and slowly, quietly, slips an arm around her shoulders. They stand in silence for a bit, before finally he breaks the quiet, his expression still solemn.  
“You can have mine if you want.”   
Rey starts laughing in spite of herself, and lets him pull her in a little closer.

 

Aboard the Finalizer, General Hux and Captain Phasma patrol a bridge over a squadron of stormtroopers performing drills. Their crisp footsteps echo off the durasteel interior of the star destroyer, Phasma in her gleaming armor easily keeping stride with her superior officer. Hux’s brow is flat as ever, mouth in its perpetual state of downturn.  
“I should have sent you out to begin with, Captain. Understand this is not a reflection of my...confidence in your skill or competence.” Phasma’s head stays high as per usual.   
“Of course not, sir.” Her modulated voice is its same even, mild, near purr under her helmet and Hux continues on without pause.   
“The Supreme Leader wants Ren and the girl found and retrieved. I have the utmost faith in your leadership, Captain. Bring the two of them back to this ship, by any means necessary.” He stops and swivels on his heels to make a point. Phasma stops in time with him, boots clicking, giving a short bow of her chromed helmet.   
“I have no intention of failing you, General Hux.” Hux’s expression is as dour as ever, but there is a spark of something in his frigid eyes as he flicks his gaze from the troops below to Phasma.   
“I hope not, Phasma. I certainly hope not.”

 

“I don’t like this,” Finn grumbles, certainly not for the first time in the past few weeks, “I _really_ don’t like this.” Poe drops down from the interior of his x-wing, dusting himself off a bit. His handsome face is streaked with oil and grime, but the rag he uses just smears it more than anything else.   
“We gotta do things we don’t like sometimes, bud.” He wipes his hands off on the same rag, shaking his head. “Even if we _really_ don’t like ‘em.” Finn’s mouth is a hard line and his brow furrows.   
“I’d rather be out looking for her.” Poe sighs, nodding.   
“I would too, but…”   
“She’s our friend! And the General won’t even tell us anything--” Poe gives him a look, leaning his head a little.   
“We don’t know that the General knows anything more than we do. And she’s not just some crazy old woman, Finn; General Organa knows what she’s doing. I trust her, probably more than anybody else in this outfit.” Finn opens his mouth, looking mildly offended, and Poe grins. “Well...except maybe you.”   
“‘Maybe’...” Poe laughs and slings an arm over Finn’s shoulders, then turns them to head out of the hangar. He throws a glance over his shoulder before they get too far, though.   
“BB-8! Comin’, buddy?” The round droid beeps in alert, swiveling its head towards the two men before rolling along after them, chirruping amiably. Poe sets them off walking again, shaking his head. “What I’m saying is: trust the General. I don’t think she’d send you out like this for nothing. We need to get in touch with this guy, and he’s turned away all the Resistance members we’ve sent after him so far. You’re an unknown face, you and Rose. And,” he squeezes Finn’s shoulder, “The General trusts you too, y’know.” Finn inhales deeply through his nose, nodding some.   
“I want to help. You know I do.”   
“But...you wanna go out and look for Rey with the others. Believe me, I know.” Poe’s lips wrinkle up some. “But I kinda feel like if Rey wanted us to find her right now, we’d find her, you know?” Finn exhales loudly, looking concerned.   
“That’s just it, though. Why _doesn’t_ she want us to find her?”

 

With a loud whoop that echoes through the large, open chamber, Rey throws herself into a huge pool, sending a splash up that washes water over the sides of the stone floor and makes Kylo wrinkle his nose some. This wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he decided they should investigate the large indoor bath--the bathing chamber itself was enormous and clearly designed for more than two occupants, but that didn’t bother either of them in the slightest. With a high arching ceiling and polished stone columns, the bath was stately and elegant, and well-kept. Sunlight streamed in from a skylight at the apex of the ceiling, and filtered through smaller windows around the room; enough to let light in, but with panes mottled to obscure any potential onlookers from outside.

Kylo Ren stands on the polished stone floor barefoot, watching Rey resurface and sling her now-soaked hair around in an attempt to get it out of her eyes. It doesn’t entirely work, but she looks delighted nonetheless. He takes a slow breath, reminding himself that sometimes with Rey if he wants something like this to go a certain way he ought to say so first. Or else just try to steer things with a more firm hand--  
“Oh just get naked and get in here, will you?” She calls suddenly, and he knows she’s in his head anyways. He gives her a look, but casts aside the dressing robe all the same and then finds steps so he can lower himself into the water in a more dignified manner. Rey just watches, a mixture of amusement and impatience on her face as she paddles in lazy circles, half on her back. She kicks her legs languidly over towards him when he’s finally actually in the bath, raising an eyebrow up at him. “You really do love overthinking things, hm?”

His expression is flat as he looks at her, pitching backwards to dip his hair into the water and then straightening again, keeping the dark waves away from his face successfully.  
“I’m not overthinking anything.”   
“You are. You do this a lot--almost like you forget I can hear what you’re thinking…” she trails off teasingly in a sing-song voice, but doesn’t bother with subtlety in admiring him in his now soaking wet state. He glances down at her with a smirk.   
“I could say the same.” She shrugs, though, grinning up at him cheekily.   
“Wasn’t really overthinking that. Or hiding it.” She reaches her arms up towards him and he takes her hands, pulling her towards him on her back in the water. Her hair drifts around her head in a hazy brown cloud, and she looks pleased. “So this is a bath.” Kylo nods a bit.   
“In a manner of speaking.”   
“What’s that mean?”   
“Well...we’re in a bath. The water’s warm, we’re technically getting rinsed off--”   
“Are we supposed to have soap?”   
“Usually yes.”   
“...So….should we... _get_ soap?”

He shrugs lazily, stretching a bit and letting a hand stray down over her chest to trail fingertips over her stomach.  
“There’s plenty of time for that.” Rey shivers a little and twitches ticklishly in the water before moving to float more upright, facing him and trying to follow his lead in slicking her hair back from her face. She grins up at him and looks positively impish.   
“If we get the water dirty, doesn’t that kinda defeat the entire purpose of being in here to get clean…” He snorts, leaning in a little, lowering in the water to get closer to eye-level with her.   
“I know you’re just dying to find out.” Rey grins, teeth peeking out from between her lips as she leans up towards him in kind.   
“You know me _so_ well…”

They meet for a kiss, and they tangle in the Force. Kylo Ren’s tongue slides against hers, burning and hungry, and Rey’s brilliant Force-presence seethes and surges around his. Everything is warm and wet, and when they merge within the Force, their bodies are twin suns, blazing towards that point of fusion. His arms are needy, sweeping her body in against his, and her own arms lock around his neck, her legs wrapping around his hips in the water. Rey’s fingers slip through Kylo’s slick curls at the back of his neck as she presses curious, soft kisses over his face--but in the end she smiles against his mouth, feeling his nose brush hers insistently when her lips stray from his too long. He kisses her like it is the last time, every time. Desiring and passionate, enough to make her feel as if she might drown, and yet she never wants to come up for air.

The bathwater actually heats up around them--an unconscious result of their power combining this way--and steam drifts up around them slowly, misting over the surface of the water. Kylo lifts Rey a bit, enough to let her shift her hips some, and when he takes more time holding her like this, Rey’s legs squeeze around him. She rocks her hips against him and bites at his lips, bumping her forehead against his gently. His grip shifts and one of his hands slides to cup her ass, squeezing teasingly. Rey laughs, breathless and throwing her head back in the steamy air, sweat and water mixing and making her skin shine in the soft, filtered daylight. Kylo leans his head to kiss her collarbone when she laughs, feeling the laugh vibrate in her chest, thrumming against his mouth on her skin. His arms tighten around her, fingers kneading at the plush curve of her ass, and things seem so slow, so leisurely--like time itself has slowed to give them more of this moment, more time to enjoy one another. Rey feels his soft lips on her chest, trailing between her breasts before he turns his attention to just one of them, and Rey moans out into the quiet room, the sound echoing softly against the stone walls and floors and columns around them. He sucks in deep, tongue lapping at her skin slowly, savoring every bit. Her breasts are small but soft, wickedly pliant beneath his teasing mouth. His teeth tweak at her nipple and he feels her buck in his arms, groaning and grasping at his back. She loves this, loves his mouth, loves the way he adores her body, feels like a goddess in his arms as he worships her skin. Kylo can nearly suck her entire breast into his mouth and Rey shudders, and he feels powerful in her grasp-- _he_ does this to her, _he_ makes her feel this way. Rey moans and shivers, and she does so for _him_. No one else; and she knows, she knows, she _knows_ , their bond envelops the both of them and there is nothing and no one else in the universe. No one will know her this way. No one will know him this way. He will worship her body like an adoring acolyte, and she will show him the exaltation of a reverent disciple--they pray to one another, two deities each basking in the glory of the other.

When Rey coaxes his mouth back up to her own, she can just taste the hint of sweat from her own skin, and her fingers curl into his hair to pull him closer. His free hand wanders over her side, trailing up over her ribs and down to her hip as he holds her up firmly with his opposite arm, and Rey breaks their kiss only to exhale against his lips, her breath a soft appeal.  
“I want you.”   
Kylo Ren feels it in his very bones. Her want, his want.   
Their bodies connect, and oh, stars, _what was bliss before this_?

His thrusts are slow and rhythmic--they listen to the sounds that echo around them and laugh breathlessly against one another’s skin at the steam and the quiet that magnifies every tiny noise. They _laugh_ \--when was fucking ever so amazingly _amusing_? When had sex become this thing that was playful and happy, less for relief and release and more for one another, more for simple enjoyment?   
He laughs, joyful and low, and Rey shivers in his arms, kissing the beads of sweat on his brow. She thinks she loves him in this moment, his arms around her, his heart beating against her skin as they rock together and he laughs for her so that she can feel it, rumbling in his chest and brushing against her neck.   
He can sense it, this strange shift, and for a moment they’re both so overcome with a surge of emotion--love? Is there such a thing there between them? He thinks _yes,_ only between they two, only for her, only _ever_ for her--and their hips lock together, her legs tight around his waist as she nearly curls in against his chest with the tight pressure before release. Her nails dig into his back, his fingers grasp at her hips and the back of her neck and they both seem to convulse at once through grit teeth and a coiling tight pressure in their bellies, and when they break and climax, they do so together. It hits them like a breaking wave, like a breath of air to drowning lungs, and Rey keens high and heavenly to an empty chamber while Kylo Ren groans and grunts, low and guttural against her shoulder.

She nearly falls back into the bath, so delightfully limp and sated, but she’s holding him too tightly to slip backwards. Likewise, his face is buried against her neck, and he kisses along her shoulder and collarbone as they both come down from their shared high. Rey is the first one of them to speak, a little tremor still in her voice.  
“So that was a bath? I think I like them…”   
Kylo Ren can do nothing but bury his face against her chest and laugh, amazed with himself, with her, with the strange wonder of this situation he’s found himself in, with the fact that he thinks for the first time, he is genuinely, unapologetically _happy._

 

They receive visitors the next day. Very unexpected visitors--the two of them are going through forms on the balcony, slick with sweat and rosy-faced from heat and laughter they meet the guests in one of the dining rooms and both pause at the sight.  
A man and woman in clothing Kylo would term ‘fashionable’ stand out right away; they’re flanked by a trio of aides and one younger woman comes to the front of the troupe of them, bowing to the startled pair. Rey recognizes her from Chima’s retreat, and for a moment she looks bewildered, but then the woman speaks up.   
“I am here as a messenger from Lady Bellori--” she gestures to the group behind her, “She’s sent her personal stylists to outfit the both of you for your upcoming trip.” Rey’s mouth is hanging open, but Kylo just raises an eyebrow.   
“Her stylists?” The maid nods, a placid smile on her face.   
“Indeed. The dress code at Canto Bight is--”   
“--Particular, I know. I guess we may as well take advantage of Chima’s...er…” He eyes the stylists somewhat dubiously for a moment, “...Generosity.”

Rey has no idea how people put up with all of this. She's been rinsed off in one of the sonics, and now she's in a small sitting room, surrounded by the stylist and her assistants.  Poking and prodding, being measured and studied like something to be put up for sale--more than once she swats at the lady-stylist’s hands and looks at her aides indignantly, but in the end she grudgingly accepts the strange treatment. She wonders how Kylo is faring.

Kylo Ren is honestly somewhat used to this. He grew up the son of a very public figure--he remembers the fittings, the rehearsals, the _functions._ He isn’t particularly thrilled with this, but he knits his brow and sighs heavily and lets them get it all over with, settling for peering into Rey’s half of things and snorting more than once about her fussing with the people fussing over her.   
Still, he wonders what the results of all of this are going to be.

The stylists leave eventually, chattering confidently about designs and how they’re so terribly lucky to have such statuesque subjects, and Rey watches them leave with a stunned expression on her face. They’re out of the house and she squints some at the doorway they left through.  
“What just happened?” Kylo snorts.   
“You were just treated like someone rich.” Rey’s mouth forms a line.   
“I’m not sure I liked that.” He snickers, turning on his heel for the balcony again.   
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not rich.” She opens her mouth, realizes he’s walked away, and then follows.   
“Well we’re both here, aren’t we? Isn’t this living like the rich?” He lets out a bark of a laugh.   
“First of all, no, it’s not, not hardly. And second, _I_ am rich. You’re just along for the ride.”   
Rey’s face scrunches up a little as she picks up her pace after him. She decides she doesn’t like what all this--this-- _money_ does to people.

 

When they meet Chima to leave for Canto Bight, Rey feels something strange. The closer they get to leaving, she knows Kylo feels it too, and as they board Chima’s private shuttle, they let her carry on as they speak to one another aside.  
_I feel...strange._   
_Not quite uneasy, just…_   
_Off? Almost anxious?_ Rey nods slightly as she responds. Chima lets Willak wander around the ship freely, the loth-cat like a prince in his palace, though he makes a point of rubbing against Rey’s legs and giving her a very deliberate look that she thinks is entirely too imperious for an animal his size. Kylo takes a breath, offering a quick nod back.   
_Yes. I can’t put a finger on it, but something is about to happen._ Rey _does_ feel uneasy at this, though.   
_But_ **_what_** _?_ _  
I don’t know._

They’re dressed before they arrive, made up and tucked in and coiffed, and when their pilot comes over the comm to say they’re nearly docking and the trio meet to disembark, Rey and Kylo see one another and their brows shoot up instantly. Chima claps her hands excitedly and lets out a delighted laugh.  
“Oh my stars, you both look fabulous!” She crows, looking from one of them to the other. “Oh I’ll be the talk of the casino strolling in with the two of you--how marvelous!”

Kylo Ren is in _white_ \--he’s not sure when the last time he wore white was, and the color on himself is...shocking, to say the least. The clothing could have suited a senator, a prince (not that he’s so unaccustomed to this) and it feels strangely in place but for the color of it. The lines of it are clean and sleek; it almost feels similar to the ‘uniform’ he wore before, aboard the Finalizer, when his allegiances were firm and clear and he thought he knew who he was. He wears a caped coat with a high collar over his shoulders, the long cape skirting the floor as he walks. Beneath the coat are two other layers of robes--not unlike the vaguely-Jedi robes he’s been wearing on Naboo--while the outermost and innermost layers are white, the middle layer, the collar of which peeks out at the neckline and around the hemline of his coat, is black and white, patterned in close-knit geometric shapes. A wide belt knotted around with a black cord holds the coat around him, and leads down to fitted white trousers and even white leather boots.   
His hair is tied back out of his face, a braid running back from the peak of his forehead to a knot from the rest of his thick dark hair tied at the back of his head.

Rey is in black, deep and sweeping, form-fitting and unusual--for her. She is in a gown; it hugs her slender torso down to her hips and from there flows to the floor. A collar curves down over her shoulders to form the neckline, or lack of one; the front of the dress is plunging--slicing down to her midsection, just under her ribs, the back of the dress is cut out almost further than the front and still manages to form a cape in spite of the skin-baring cutout, and it trails at least a foot behind her on the floor. It reveals a good deal of tanned, freckled skin, but most attention is drawn to a collar at the center of it all that winds around her neck and is crafted to fan out from the base of her throat in an array of silver strands of metal, like a starburst, or the rays of some pale sun.  
Her arms are bare but for silver bands above her elbows, and there is an odd sort of headdress the stylists have insisted upon that settles at the back of her head; a rigid ring covered in the same black fabric as the dress, making an odd kind of halo behind her. Her hair is pulled back away from her face, braided tight on the sides to form a wreath on which the headpiece is nestled, and there is another silver band that circles her head, cutting a gleaming line across her forehead.   
Possibly most striking, however, is the strip of white makeup they’ve put on her--in stark contrast to the black clothing is a thin rectangle of white, crossing the bridge of Rey’s nose and surrounding her eyes, making the golden-green of her eyes seem even more vibrant.

Kylo can’t take his eyes off of her.

The strange silence lasts long enough that Chima claps her hands again and has to usher them out with her, waving them along.  
“Come on, come on, come with me--I simply can’t _wait_ to show you two around, I just know you’ll both adore this place!” Rey grins to herself as they walk behind Chima, and feels confident, feels...she feels powerful, beautiful.   
_Maybe I’ll keep these clothes…_ She sends teasingly, but when she flicks a glance at Kylo out of the corner of her eyes, he’s nearly turned his head to keep staring at her. She can’t help but look a bit smug. _Stop staring. You’ll make us look suspicious._   
_I can’t help it._ Rey rolls her eyes, but can’t banish her little grin. Kylo shakes his head some in awe.   
_You look...you look breathtaking in black._ He sounds breathless even in the bond, and Rey’s chin might have jutted just slightly higher at the compliment.   
_I like the white on you myself._ She feels the satisfaction rolling off of him, and only then does he turn his gaze back ahead of himself. _Shame we have to keep these on for the trip. I don’t think I know how to get back into all of this if I wanted to._   
There’s a strangled, surprised laugh in their link, and Rey has to stop herself from snickering in realtime. She isn’t sure if she’s serious about the comment or if it’s only a joke, but she’s pleased with the reaction all the same. Kylo looks amused, and then it turns to smug satisfaction when they both note the glances they’re receiving from other visitors.

They’re heading into the thick of things now; Chima is leading them down a terribly luxurious docking walkway towards a magnificent-looking building; there are guests scattered around them even outside of the place, chatting and heading both in and out. Everyone, Rey notes, is in black and white for the most part; she understands the need for specific clothing now. At least they blend in--they look like any other guests here, and that won’t draw in anyone’s eye if they’re scanning the crowds.  
The three of them are stopped briefly by staff outside of the huge front doors of the place; a Rodian in crisp black and white flanked by a Herglic male addresses Chima, who does a bit of chatting--Rey is beginning to wonder if all of this is some kind of odd skill of hers, like the Force, just...with words? How else can Chima have so much to talk about?--and gets the three of them in, ushered through the doors and given instructions on where to find the gambling tournament and a card to get inside.

Inside Canto Bight’s massive club is loud, pulsing with energy and life. The main room is jammed with life forms, human and otherwise, all in black and white; they drink, they dance, they rove about with one another, some skirting the shifting lights to stay in the shadows of the dim room. Even the lights are white and silver against the black-and-white decor of the building. Rey is entranced; there is loud music playing, the bass makes her heart pump against her ribs and she likes it, likes the rhythm, likes the sounds and the way it makes people dance. Chima leads them through the crowds, however, and Kylo has to take Rey’s arm to keep her with them. She senses something, something that makes her eyes dart over the crowds, something that makes Kylo Ren’s hand on her arm tighten slightly, but that isn’t addressed right then.  
They stop at a smaller, more secluded doorway guarded by two more Herglics, but when Chima shows them the card the Rodian gave her, they let the three of them through the door, opening it just long enough for the train of Rey’s gown to slither inside, and then snapping the door shut again behind them.

This room is quieter--immediately there is lower, slower music, and the low hush of voices thrumming through the place. The three of them head up a slim, spiraling staircase leading to a significantly brighter room than the club on the lower level, this chamber filled with creatures keeping mostly quiet save for soft conversation and the occasional clink of glassware or the jingle of clothing. The decor is more sleek, more refined, the lighting is soft, the room feels more luxurious, more plush, even in the same muted colors as the rest of the club. Rey _feels_ different in this part of the place; she walks taller, straighter, her expression seems to neutralize. These people are different from the revelers dancing before; there are different rules in this room, different standards. Her eyes scan the strange, exotic crowd, and she keeps Kylo’s arm as they walk behind Chima (who seems to know everyone present, which is of no surprise to either of them).   
Chima turns to them after she sees her husband and waves at him across the room, keeping her voice quiet--but still just as pleasant and cheerful--as she hands them the card from before.   
“Feel free to wander about! You’re both with me, so of course if you run into any trouble just give them my name. The drinks here are divine, they have anything you could want! I’ll be watching the tournament for my husband, but if you need anything at all come and find me! It’s going to be starting soon, I need to go and wish him luck!” And with that, they’re left to wander for a bit.

They instantly distance themselves from the other creatures in the room.  
_Did you feel that--I felt--_   
_I felt it. We don’t know what it is, we can’t take chances._   
_I know it’s him. I know, Kylo, it has to be--I need to know! I need to see if he’s here!_ Her gold-green eyes bore into his, and Kylo inhales deeply through his nose, turning and scanning the crowd for a moment, thinking.   
_There has to be a reason for this. If it_ **_is_ ** _the Tr--_   
_I’m going to go and look._ Rey’s voice is decisive and fierce, even. _You can stay here or you can come with me._ Kylo’s brow knits some.   
_And if he’s not alone?_   
_Then…_ Rey isn’t sure what to say, now.   
_Then we could be caught, and this outing could end very badly very quickly._ Rey exhales loudly in aggravation.   
_I just...I need to know, I have to know--if he’s here, he’s--he’s my_ **_friend_**!

Kylo Ren doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like it one bit, and yet he can’t deter her, so there’s nothing else to be done.

They’re stalking around the club together, trying to blend into the rest of the crowds. They both sense it, that familiar energy, but while Rey seems confident this is going to turn out fine, he has his doubts. He can only imagine running into a group of Resistance members, and this strange paradise the two of them have managed to fall into suddenly being ripped asunder. He doesn’t want that. He won’t allow it--but Rey is determined to seek out the cause of the disturbance.

While she follows the energy signature, he reaches out into the Force, trying to sense something, anything, that might send up a warning about this. Nothing close, nothing lurking...for all intent and purpose, this seems strangely coincidental. The First Order has been growing strangely quiet recently, but beyond that, things seem mostly unchanged, even now. This place, Canto Bight, however, is interesting in its own right--and so Rey might be determined to find what she’s sensing, but it doesn’t mean she’s given up on exploring, either.

They stalk around the dance floor, and Rey watches curiously as people dance. She’s never seen dancing like this--or really much at all--and she watches shamelessly as they pass the crowd. Everything is black and white and silver, though this part is decorated like any other club space she’s ever glanced at. Gleaming silver fixtures, holos here and there that flash silver and white and dark, strangely. Neon silver lighting under shelves and chairs, trays that glow white to be seen, to boast their drinks and snacks. They take drinks from passing trays, some ridiculously sweet, some that burn their throats, some that glow, some that swirl in their tiny glasses, some that look filled with little stones that end up popping in their mouths. Rey wants to try everything; she takes the first drink, and then the next, and another, and by then she’s feeling strangely loose and just keeps going, driven by curiosity and more drink. Kylo has more of a tolerance, thankfully, but Rey seems good enough at keeping her wits about her. Even if she does keep trying to get him to dance.  
They find hidden nooks where more than just a few couples are...taking advantage of the low lighting. Rey looks startled but then far too interested, and they have to duck back out before they’re chased away, laughing and darting back off into the sea of people. Rey is giddy with drink and delighted to be getting to explore, and Kylo Ren is enjoying himself as well, to his own surprise. They find another room full of machines, holos, video screens and _colors_ , where the air is hazy with smoke and incense and something that smells suspiciously like spice, and people are placing bets. They drift through and watch holos of creatures fighting as people surround the spectacle and cheer and shout. They watch screens showing races and strange competitions, stand and watch tables of men and women playing cards and throwing dice--Rey wants to try, and Kylo has to pull her away, laughing at her enthusiasm. Instead of gambling themselves, Rey blows on dice that are held out to her, prompted by older men and women alike, insisting a pretty girl’s breath is good luck. Rey has no idea if this is true or not but she likes the idea of it anyways.

Another room has slightly darker entertainment--they should have suspected something when they were patted down before entering--men and women in states of undress, some of them entertaining others in much more intimate fashion than in the other rooms; undulating to slow, rhythmic music and touching a great deal more. The room is in red and violet and black, making everything seem foreign and strangely more attractive, and Rey stares unabashedly, recalling places like this on Jakku, wondering at how very alike even this far reach of the galaxy is. Kylo leads them out again, but Rey slides an arm around his waist and he glances down at her with interest as they find their own dark corner, and both of them--drunk on alcohol and the excitement of this strange, lively place--decide to take a moment to test out what some of the other guests are enjoying so much. Kylo presses Rey up against a wall, careful of her hair and the disc headdress but not too careful to stay away. He kisses her hard, and Rey groans against his mouth, pulling him in by the collar of his coat and hitching one of her legs up around his hips. He pushes her skirt back from her thigh and holds her there possessively, feeling constricted in so much clothing but no less enthusiastic as Rey rolls her hips against him, her teeth grazing his lips and the honey sweet taste of liquor on her tongue. They grin wickedly at their brazenness when they realize other creatures are passing them so close, but Kylo’s hand wanders further up her thigh and Rey shifts a knee between his legs, and if they are supposed to stop, they don’t care.  
“I don’t think this is what ‘cousins’ do, _Set_ …” Rey taunts him, low and hungry despite the suggestion of her statement. Kylo just smirks, hand sliding up to grasp a palmful of her ass.   
“I don’t think I care, _Veré._ ”   
Except, they both _do_ care when one of the wandering security guards chases the two of them off, even if they’re still breathless and laughing shamelessly as they run off down another hallway, their arms locked together.   
They find their way back to the club room after this, coming down from their high some and debating over going back to find Chima again.

  
After the hours of wandering, finally, they stop to just sit, and Rey seems put out.   
“Maybe I was wrong,” she sighs when they’ve found a quiet corner, a small table to stop at. “Maybe he’s not here. I just thought...I don’t know.” Kylo feels relieved, really.   
“How about a drink?” Mostly it’s a distraction, but he’s hoping to cheer her up again. Rey nods some, gazing out at the crowds idly.   
“All right. Something with heat, something good,” is all she says. He gives a nod and slips away, heading for one of the bars they passed in their wandering.

Rey leans on her elbow on the small table for a moment, watching the dancing crowds. She knew that energy, she knows what she sensed earlier--how can she have been wrong? Even if she got a little out of her senses afterwards... It had to be him...she just can’t imagine why he would be _here_ , all the same. This is certainly the last place she would--

A flash of something brown and red, darting through the crowd. Rey’s eyes widen and she tracks the movement, feeling herself go still.  
In seconds she’s on her feet and slipping through the dancers, trying to find the colorful streak amidst the black and white.

The ‘colorful streak’ finds her, when she’s peeking around a more quiet corner towards washrooms.

“...Rey?”

Her breath catches in her throat and her chest feels tight at the sound, and she slowly turns to find the owner of the voice standing nearby, staring at her in disbelief. She swallows thickly, turning to face him and feeling very strange suddenly, very out-of-place, very aware of how strange she must look, slightly mussed from all their roaming and from their little ‘break’ earlier, still a little flushed from her drinking. Her voice is barely a whisper, stunned and heavy with emotion.

“...Finn.”

Immediately Finn rushes to her, taking her arms just like he always has, embracing her and then pulling back. Finn looks almost just the same, and yet different. Something about him is stronger, firmer; he looks at her with warm eyes, but he seems sturdier, not as unsure or as soft as when she left.  
“Rey--Rey you’re all right--where have you _been?!_ ” He questions her hurriedly, taking in her appearance. Rey shakes her head slowly, still trying to comprehend the situation. Finn is here, her friend is here, right now, right here with her. She hugs him back, and swallows again.   
“I--I’m fine, I’m--I’m fine, I’ve been...I’ve been...out, around…” The answer is stupid. She hates that she’s said it, and yet she couldn’t find any other words just then. Finn’s brow knits slightly.   
“What? What’s going on, Rey? Why did you leave like that?”

Rey’s eyes widen.  
He doesn’t know? Does he? Does he know where Luke found her on Mon Cala, does he know that Luke fought Kylo Ren over finding them together, that she fled Ahch-To with Kylo Ren, away from her master and from the Jedi Code and the overbearing constriction she feels there? His eyes are imploring and kind, and she knows he doesn’t have any idea.   
“I had--I had to go, Finn. There’s--” she shakes her head, everything coming back to her. She can’t be caught here, she can’t go back to the Resistance. Not yet, at the very least. She pulls back from him some. “There’s something I have to do, Finn, there’s somewhere else I have to be, and I…”   
“What?” Finn follows when she pulls back, however, confused and hurt. “Where, Rey? Where do you have to go, why did you have to leave? Why couldn’t you tell us? Why can’t you tell me?”   
It breaks Rey’s heart to know he feels so upset with her absence. Her chest feels tight, she wants to tell her friend everything, wants to be able to keep contact with him, especially him, to know he is still there and on her side--but things are complicated now. Too complicated, too dangerous.   
“I can’t--I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Finn, I wish I could tell you everything but I can’t--I miss you, I miss everyone, but I can’t come back, there’s too much…”   
“Too much _what_??”

Something beeps on Finn’s jacket, and Rey goes on alert. Finn checks a comlink in his ear and gives Rey an imploring look.  
“Rey, why are you _here?_ What’s going on??” She shakes her head, pulling away from him and stepping back, suddenly feeling the concern from Kylo. He’s looking for her now, unsure where she’s gone, and she knows if he finds her now…   
“I’m sorry, Finn--I’m sorry. I promise you--I promise you one day I’ll tell you everything, but right now--” another beep from the comm. Finn answers this time.   
“I understand, we’re hurrying now. Leaving just as soon as we can!” He looks at Rey again and doesn’t understand, but something else burns in his eyes that makes worry blossom in Rey’s belly. “Rey...I wish I knew what was going on. I wish you would come back with me, that you would come back home. I have to go--my mission here is over, I have to report back.” He reaches out, tightly clasps one of her hands in his. “I’m your friend, Rey. Me, and Poe, and Jess. Snap, and Raina and Becks, _everyone_ \--and the _General_ , Rey--we miss you. We’ve been worried about you. Everyone’s been looking for you--at least now I can tell them you’re safe.” He turns to leave but Rey tries to grab him again, suddenly alarmed.   
“Wait--Finn--you can’t do that--”

Finn turns, but something else catches his eye now. A figure in white, steadily closing the distance between himself and Rey, a figure whose face Finn knows terrifyingly well, even after all this time. His eyes widen and Rey realizes what’s happened, and she recoils immediately, turning on her heel and trying to sprint through the crowd now, grabbing Kylo’s arm before he can turn to go with her. There’s a mixture of rage and confusion on his face, but Rey doesn’t have time for all of it, not now. She can only try and drag him with her, away from Finn’s horrified stare and out of sight, managing just a single word through the bond:

_RUN._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO i hope this didn't disappoint--i started getting a little worried about the chapter being too long, but i wanted to get in some more descriptions here. tried to stay at least a little vague, but....
> 
> not quite 'smut' smut this week, but these two are falling into that lull of being familiar and complacent, and i definitely wanted it to show.
> 
> little cliffhanger at the end, don't hate me!
> 
> as always, everyone, thank you all for reading and sticking with me! <3 i'm so glad you've made it this far, thank you all so much!


	24. Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Possession** _noun_  
>  pos·ses·sion /pəˈzeSHən/  
> 1 _the state of being controlled by a demon or spirit._  
>  2 _the state of being completely under the influence of an idea or emotion._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N :**   
>  _hey guys, so, i've been worrying about this update just because this chapter gets a little dark and a little rough; i'm sincerely hoping it's not too bad, but if you read and think there needs to be any kind of warning, please let me know!_   
> 

There isn’t time to explain anything--even Rey’s voice in the bond is rushed and anxious, a rapid flow of thoughts and words and emotions as she grabs onto Kylo’s arm and hefts the skirt of her dress with her free hand, diving the both of them into the sea of dancing bodies. Kylo moves with her, but all he can see are the Traitor’s eyes still, the expression on his face. FN-2187 was talking with Rey, and _recognized_ him. Fuck. Fuck, _fuck_ \--of all the things to kriffing happen--

Behind them, Finn is radioing someone else on the comm in his ear, shouting that he needs more time as he barrels through the crowd after Rey, after _Kylo Ren_. He knows what he saw, he knows _who_ he saw, and now…  
_Rey_ , he thinks desperately, _Rey, what the hell are you doing?? Why in all the damn_ **_galaxy_ ** _are you with_ **_him_** _?!_

Rey and Kylo try and lose Finn in the crowd, hurrying to find the blocked door, the way to get back to Chima. If they can get out of the public space, he can’t follow them--but now he knows they’re here--  
_We have to get out of this place,_ comes Kylo’s voice, snarling through the bond. _You_ **_had_ ** _to go after the Traitor--_  
_HIS NAME IS FINN!_ Rey roars back at him, nails digging into his arm through his sleeve, His name is Finn and he is still my friend! But she knows, she knows that Kylo is right, all the same. They have to run, and hiding with Chima is only a temporary fix.  
Kylo has the gold card out before they even reach the doors--the dance floor is like a maze, they pass one of the bars twice and nearly run into the same couple again before Rey points and they push through the crowd to small hallway that leads to the door with the Herglic bouncers. Rey casts a glance back over her shoulder before the door can latch shut behind them again, and she sees Finn in the crowd for a split second--and then the door shuts, and he’s gone.  
Her chest feels tight as she follows Kylo up the staircase.  
Finn. Her friend. She looks back at the door, imagining him on the other side.  
She’ll go back one day, her fingers clench into a fist in the black fabric of her skirt. She’ll go back to all of them.

The tournament is in full tilt when they get inside. The chamber they had left Chima in before was a lobby area; there is a small bar and a sitting area, but it isn’t nearly so populated now. A few screens around the room broadcast the tournament to anyone still in this room, but Rey and Kylo continue through.  
The actual tournament is styled as a sort of coliseum, the room dimly lit, save for the small cluster of tables in the middle of the lowest level, groups of players huddled around them. The spectators have box seats in the surrounding levels, and an usher leads the two of them to where Chima is seated. She stands to greet them when they arrive, looking pleased.  
“Oh! There you both are--how have you liked Canto Bight?” She looks terribly pleased and Rey hates to ask to leave, seeing the bright smile on her face. Chima might be a chatterbox, but she’s been kind to them since they met her. Kylo doesn’t have the same reservations.  
“It’s been lovely, Chima--but something’s come up, we need to leave.” Chima’s face falls, and Rey reaches out to rest a gentle hand on her arm.  
“We’ve had such a lovely time, really! I’m so grateful to have come here; but there’s been an emergency--”  
“Oh dear!” Chima’s golden eyes widen in fright. “Oh, if there’s an emergency then by all means please! Have Ruli take you to the docking area and she’ll have my pilot take you anywhere you need to go!” Rey looks startled.  
“Chima, that’s--” But Chima waves her off.  
“Nonsense, if there’s an emergency then you must go!” She takes Rey’s hands and clasps them tightly, smiling at her brightly. “And of course, I’ll be seeing you both again soon on Naboo!” Rey smiles softly, nodding and squeezing Chima’s hands in return.  
“Yeah. As soon as we can, we should all have dinner again.” Chima nods back, looking delighted.  
“I can’t wait. Safe travels to you both!” Rey releases her hands and takes Kylo’s arm again, offering Chima a nod as they retreat with one of the maids leading.  
“May the Force be with you, Chima.”  
Chima is quiet at this, surprised by the phrase. She hasn’t heard those words in a long, long time--but somehow, hearing them makes her heart swell some as she watches her two friends go.

Ruli, as it turns out, is the same maid that came to Varykino with the stylists in the first place--she takes them through a side exit reserved for the elite guests, and calls up Chima’s pilot and her private shuttle. Ruli gives them both a polite bow, smiling.  
“Thank you both for accompanying Miss Chima today. I know she will look forward to seeing the two of you again soon.”  
Kylo gives her a bow of his head, ushering Rey into the ship.  
“Please, pass along our thanks. We’re...sorry we have to leave so soon.” Ruli nods back, but when she raises her head again there is a knowing smile on her face.  
“Canto Bight does not keep security footage, nor does its staff keep ledgers of guest names. I hope that your emergency abates itself quickly and quietly.”  
Kylo is silent for a moment, but then gives Ruli a quick nod of thanks, and ducks into the shuttle with Rey.

 

They ask to be taken back to Naboo--and once they’re on course, alone in the ship, Rey collapses on one of the sofas, her head in her hands, the black disc headdress slipping loose from her hair.  
Kylo watches her quietly, shucking off his caped coat, folding it and setting it aside on a chair. Rey feels...guilt. He senses it, everything in her, the guilt, the fear of being caught, the sadness at leaving behind...her friends, the place she had thought could be her home…

He goes to a knee in front of her, taking her wrists gently.  
“Rey. Rey, look at me…” the white makeup around her eyes is smudged, and her eyes glisten with tears when she does look up at him, hurt and angry.  
“I should have said something to them, I should have--I should have--” His brow knits, knowing she doesn’t mean these things. She knows she could not have done anything, but she feels _guilt_. His fingers tighten around her wrists, drawing them away from her face so he can lean closer to her.  
“If you had gone back, if you had said anything to any of them, we would be running still, or worse.”  
_Or worse._ Everything that hasn’t been addressed, everything that could happen. Everything they face if they are caught.

There’s a silence that falls between them then, and Rey looks exhausted suddenly--the weight of hiding, the guilt, the heaviness that the alcohol put off for a short while dragging her back into her bones and making her sag some with the heaviness.  
“Why are we doing this?” She gets out after a while, her voice soft, cracking slightly. Kylo Ren shifts to take her hands, and takes a breath.  
“What do you want me to say, Rey?” His voice is an exhale, resigned. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have an answer.  
“I just want you to tell me why we’re here, why we ran.” He shuts his eyes, inhaling softly.  
“I don’t have an answer.” She already knows. She doesn’t have one either.

 

The ride passes in silence. When they return to Varykino, it is raining.  
Rey doesn’t speak, just goes in ahead of Kylo and disappears into the mansion, shedding clothing and jewelry as she goes. He doesn’t bother chasing her, just heads to their usual wing, to the room he’s been calling their bedroom. He sheds his clothing as well, takes a long visit to the ‘fresher, tries to think.  
He wanted out, away from Snoke, away from the Order--and yet going to the Resistance wasn’t an option. What could he do? There was, is, no way he can face his mother--and after everything he’s done, going to the Resistance meant a death sentence.  
Rey. All he wants, all he wanted then, the only thing he knows and needs and has any care for is _Rey_. He’s thrown away his position and his safety, all for her.  
He would do it again, over and over, if it meant this time with her.

Rey doesn’t shower. Instead, finally naked and alone, she tugs at the braids in her hair and wanders out onto a balcony, into the rain. It isn’t the soft drizzle they played in before, this is harder than summer rain, a storm that’s still rolling in over the lake. She can see darker clouds in the distance, lightning striking over the churning lakewater. Thunder growls off further away, and Rey just watches, rubbing at the already smudged makeup on her face until the white paint runs off down her cheeks and washes away. Why is she here? Why did she run?  
It was raining on Ahch-To that night when he came back. It was raining when they kissed for the first time, burned and tired, on an open field on D’Qar, too. The rain here is cool and feels cleansing, but as she sits on the cold, slick stone floor, Rey feels anything but clean.  
They ran away from everything. She turned her back on her friends, the only ‘family’ she’s known, her home. She abandoned everything, just to run away, to hide with Kylo Ren.  
Has it been worth it?  
She thinks of the nights she’s held onto him in his sleep, the nightmares she’s felt in him. She thinks of the days they’ve spent training, the feeling of the Force surging around them, singing for the both of them like she’s never heard before. Rey thinks of the times she’s touched his skin, felt his lips on hers, the times they’ve merged together and felt like _one_ , the Force binding them together… She doesn’t know if she would do everything again, but…  
She shuts her eyes, feeling the rain on her face, and suddenly, without warning, her body pitches forward and she starts to cry.  
Why is this so _difficult_??

Kylo Ren finally does go to find her when the wind picks up and the thunder booms overhead. She hasn’t come back--he knows, he knows she’s upset, he knows she’s hurting, he wants to let her find her own footing with everything, but he feels her cold and so pained in the bond that he can’t let it be.  
He finds her still on the balcony, wet and nude, sitting on the ground. The rain has spilled into the sitting room she came out from, the doors open still, and while he’s intended to let her have her time to herself, he doesn’t miss a beat striding out into the rain and lifting her up into his arms to take her inside. She tenses, he feels it, she almost thinks to fight him, but then she doesn’t.

He carries her back into their room, trailing cold water behind them. Rey doesn’t struggle, doesn’t move much, but she is awake, alert. He can sense something tensed in her, crouching like a beast in wait for its prey. He doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, but he treads lightly for the time being.

Kylo carries her into the ‘fresher, finally. He doesn’t bother with his own loose trousers, just carries her inside and turns the warm water onto the both of them. Rey doesn’t speak, but she’s considering this whole situation. He knows she’s still upset about the casino and their quick departure, but doesn’t remark on anything now. The water warms her up, and idly he rubs her skin while holding her, as if to help wipe away the cold rain and their excursion before it, pushing it off of her skin to run down the drain. Rey takes a deep breath and shuts her eyes, leaning against his chest, finally relaxing some. He breathes a quiet sigh when she does this, shutting his eyes and leaning his forehead against her hair, hoping she’s at least letting this soften her mood. They stay under the flow of water a while longer, until she’s warmed up and his arms start to get a little tired.

 

The storm is still raging outside, illuminating the room occasionally to show Kylo perched on the side of the bed while Rey stands near one of the doors, watching the rain. Her expression is hard and unreadable, and he watches her silently. She’s put on a thin blue nightgown and he’s changed into dry pants, but she’s still not speaking. It’s been a few hours since they got back, and he’s starting to get more aggravated than worried, now.  
Finally, finally, there is a clap of thunder, and the silence shatters.

“So you’re not talking to me now?” Accusing. Angry. Kylo Ren is on his feet now, still next to the bed, eyes narrowed and dark. Rey doesn’t move. Quiet drifts between them, but isn’t permitted to settle. “All because of _him_ , isn’t it--all because of the _Trai_ \--”  
“HIS NAME IS _FINN!_ ” Rey swirls on him as lightning flashes behind her, her eyes alight and furious. “Force _damn_ you--his name is FINN! And it’s not his fault--you can’t blame this on him, you can’t blame everything on him!” Her voice rivals the thunder and Rey is a blazing furnace of rage and blinding heat in the Force. Kylo Ren faces her and his own anger radiates from him in turn, livid at her quick defense of the Traitor, enraged that she would turn her anger at him for this.  
“But it _is_ him, isn’t it?” He keeps on, talking over her at the end, advancing a few steps towards her. “It is--you saw him, you _spoke_ to him, and now you refuse to speak to me!” Rey bares her teeth, her fingers curling to form claws out of her hands as he continues at her. “It doesn’t matter, does it, that if he hadn’t been alone, we could both have been captured. Doesn’t matter at all, because your precious _Finn_ would never do anything to hurt you--”  
“Don’t you _fucking dare_ talk to me like that--”  
“--Nevermind that he’s with the Resistance, nevermind that he’s already shown his filthy colors, turning coat on his own brothers, firing on the soldiers he trained with and lived with--” They slowly advance on one another now, pacing slowly around the room like predatory beasts, each waiting for the other to show some slight flicker of weakness so they might attack. Rey shakes her head slowly, her eyes wide and furious, daring him to continue, warning him not to.  
“Your people _kidnapped_ him, you put him through ‘conditioning’ like an _animal_ , you treated him like some _droid_ , using him, using all of them, to just kill and ravage and _destroy_ \--”  
“--He was raised beside those other troopers, raised like family. And he betrayed them, all of them, but you _trust_ him, despite all of it--”  
“Don’t paint him like one of you!” She roars, and the energy rolls off of her enough to make the room shudder. Kylo Ren almost smirks, almost. What glorious strength, what _power_ she has--he feels it wash over him, run through him through their link, and it’s like electricity, like a dose of exhilarating adrenaline.  
“He _WAS_ one of us!” Kylo challenges, roaring back. “He was one of us, and now he says he is one of _you!_ But you trust him, you trust him as your friend, just as the others did--”  
“He is my friend!”  
“He was their friend too! Their brother! And he turned and _ran_ , he _abandoned_ them, _betrayed_ them!” Rey, it seems, has had enough--and she lunges at him now, all feral rage and ferocity.  
“ _You don’t know anything about him!_ ”

She lunges at Kylo and he catches her arms, but not before she can swing her body up to kick at his side. He shoves her back but she comes back at him, swinging hard at his head, and he knocks his arm into her stomach, and they collide--both of them tumble over each other and bounce off of one of the walls, making the room tremble. They haven’t fought like this in so long--but he revels in it, and oh... _so does she_.

He can feel it, her righteous fury, her beautiful rage--she gives in to it and attacks him viciously, getting a punch to the side of his mouth before he kicks at her legs and she claws at his shoulders to shove him back, hard, into the wall again. He does smirk at her now, shaking loose hair out of his face and licking at his newly-split lower lip.  
“Ohh, there it is…” He rumbles at her, and Rey snarls at him.  
“You really are just a fucking monster, aren’t you?” Kylo opens his arms tauntingly.  
“The monster you’ve been _fucking,_ then.” Rey slaps him across the face at this and he just barks out a laugh, catching her wrist before she can pull her arm away again. She looks disgusted and furious.  
“Of all the creatures in the kriffing galaxy, it’s _you._ It’s _you_ I’m shackled to.” He squeezes her wrist, leaning in towards her face and sneering.  
“You haven’t been complaining about that, though, have you?” She gears up to swing her free hand at him and he takes her other wrist now as well, holding her back. Rey’s eyes are burning so hot they seem to glow at him in the dark, and something deep in him shudders pleasantly. Rey senses it, though, and it’s her turn to sneer.  
“You’re the one that seems to get off on that. You enjoy the fact that we’re both angry? You like that I’ve hurt you? Fucking disgusting…” Kylo’s voice is dangerously low as he leans in towards her face further, but Rey refuses to look away. She’s realizing, albeit slowly, that something is stirring in her, too--something powerful and _intoxicating_.  
“You liked doing it, though, didn’t you? That isn’t a question--not really. You know I already know.” Rey’s nostrils flare and she fights to stay silent, but he’s right. They can’t hide from each other. “I already know how good it feels, how good the rage feels. How powerful it makes you feel.” Rey bites the words out, struggling not to say more.  
“I’m not like you, I won’t let the dark take me.”

It hurts, to some degree, and yet he won’t deny it.  
“You already have, though, haven’t you? It’s taking you right now, it’s rushing through your veins and it feels _good_ , doesn’t it?” His thumbs slide over the skin of her forearms, and Rey struggles momentarily, trying to wrench her arms from him. He holds tight, and leans over her, forcing her to either stand straight and press against him or lean back--and she bends her spine away, glaring up at him. “I feel it, Rey, I feel it in you. You know you can’t hide--neither of us can. We can hide from the galaxy, but not from _each other_.” Rey grits her teeth, still straining against him.  
“Why are you so angry now? Why are you acting like this?” She stares hard, just like she did so long ago. “Why...why are you _afraid,_ now?” His eyes narrow. “You’re _afraid_ \--you’re _always_ afraid--you’re afraid of what you’ve done, you’re afraid of what’s inside of yourself--”  
“Shut up--”  
“--You’re afraid of the darkness, too! But you’re terrified right now, you’re terrified--”  
“I said _shut up_!”  
“--You’re terrified that I’m going to _leave_!”  
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” They scream over each other and the room rings with the sound. Eyes wide, they glare at each other in the sudden, deafening silence. Kylo Ren’s chest heaves, and Rey tries to steady her own breathing. He is furious, teeth clenched as he stares at her in enraged horror. Stupid girl--stupid, _stupid_ girl-- _she’s right_.

But she isn’t going to leave.  
She won’t. And he won’t let her.

His fingers tighten around her wrists to the point of being bruising, and Rey’s hands form fists against it. Kylo Ren’s face looms just before hers, and his expression is...strange, unreadable. For a moment Rey is frozen, just staring back at him, watching his eyes. She sees it, too, that hideous yellow, yellow, not gold, not sunny, just _yellow,_ like acid in the sand, like bile from stomach-sick, like poisoned blood. Her stomach turns and she struggles in his grasp anew, unable still to break her gaze from his.  
“You won’t leave me, Rey,” His voice is quiet, a horrible imitation of tender. “You can’t. Never, Rey,” Despite her struggling, he manages to turn them, pushing her against the wall in his place, pinning her wrists over her head. Something has shifted now, this isn’t just anger anymore, this isn’t the fight they were having anymore. He feels chillingly strong suddenly, holding her wrists with one hand, bringing the other to take her chin. All Rey can see is _yellow_ , through it all. Yellow, sick and wrong, yellow giving way to something creeping and red. “I know you won’t, Rey. I feel it, you know I do…” His body slides up against hers and it is all wrong. His voice lowers to a whisper, and it is _wrong_. “You belong to me, Rey. My Rey...You won’t leave.”

Everything should feel right, everything should feel good, but he is not hers--this is not who he is, this is not what it should be. Her body reacts in spite of her revulsion and Rey is angry, angry as her back arches to meet him, as her skin prickles and tingles at his touch. His knee drags up between her legs and she presses back against the wall, beating against the desire she should not feel.  
“I don’t belong to _anyone_ \--and I will do whatever I want!” She hisses at him, clinging to her rage. Why...why--the face is all right, the hands are his hands, the mouth is his mouth. His body feels right, he even smells just right--but this is _not_ right, this is not _him_. There is no trace of Ben Solo in these eyes, and she feels cold fear to think these are not even the eyes of Kylo Ren. Why, then, does the Force radiate off of him and draw her in--why does she want him, even now, even when he is not himself, when his eyes burn into her and make her feel _sick_ \--  
His hand trails down over her neck, too light, too gentle, too right for those eyes.  
“You can’t hide from me, my Rey. You try to hide it, you try to push it down, ignore it, deny it, but you _love_ this. You _love_ the way it feels, the power, the _freedom_.”  
“What freedom? You’re talking about keeping me _hostage_ ,” she hisses through clenched teeth. He _smiles_ , and it makes her want to retch.  
“We are bound together, Rey, but the things we could do with power like this…” His fingers press into her skin and drag down to the center of her chest, over her nightgown but no less intimate. “The things you and I could do, with this kind of force at our fingertips…” Rey shudders, and she hates it, hates it, _hates_ that he’s right--Maker, the power generating between them is like nothing she’s ever felt before, even in the past few months. It makes her heart flutter and her breath catch, makes her feel like she is trapped in her own skin. He leans in close, so close, and his nose brushes her cheek, up into her hair, and his breath tickles her ear as his fingers trail ghost-light over her right breast. “Anything we wanted, anything could be ours…” Rey shuts her eyes, taking in a shivering breath. She should not enjoy this, she should not feel the heat trickling between her legs, feel her nipples stiffen, that too-familiar pressure coil in her belly. But _fuck, she does._

It’s overpowering. She bites her lips and arches into him when his hand travels down over her stomach, tugging her nightgown up and lowering his knee slightly. Her head rolls back against the wall and his teeth tease her earlobe, lips brushing down over her neck while his hand slowly slips between her thighs.  
“Hmm, I can tell just how _disgusted_ you are--”  
“Fuck you.” But she is breathless and shuddering against him as his knee nudges her legs apart and his fingers tease her. His thumb brushes her clit and he bites into her neck, and Rey mewls despite her determination not to, coating his hand with the slick proof of her lying. She hates him when he withdraws his hand to hold fingers glistening in the low light up between them.  
“You want to, don’t you?” He’s laughing at her, but she knows what he wants. She knows he wants it too, possibly more than she does. Force, she wants it. She wants it more than she should, so much she’s sickened with herself. And when he brings his sticky fingers to her mouth, she takes them in eagerly, tasting herself and laving her tongue over his skin and feeling his heartbeat quicken with every passing moment. When he pulls his hand away from her mouth, she barely has a second to breathe before he’s kissing her, hard, and his hand is between her legs again, parting her folds and pushing a finger into her without hesitation. Rey’s hips buck against him and he pushes her more firmly against the wall, swallowing any sound she might make. He works a second finger into her and Rey arches against him, her arms swinging against his grasp, desperate for something to grasp onto, but he doesn’t give her any quarter. His fingers thrust into her steady and rough, but it’s not enough, not enough, not what she wants, and Rey’s teeth catch on his lower lip finally, biting hard enough to make him break the kiss with a harsh exhale, even if he doesn’t stop fucking her with his hand.  
“What, Rey? What do you want?” He licks his lips and Rey’s hips grind down onto his palm, riding his fingers as hard as she’s able.  
“You know what I want,” she snarls, panting for breath, “Give it to me.”

He slams her into the wall when she says this, and her head bangs hard enough to make her see stars. His fingers thrust into her cunt roughly and quickly enough that she can hear it, the wet sound between them, and she bites in a cry as he leans over her, placid in spite of the hand fucking her to a quick release, hard enough that his knuckles hit the wall.  
“I told you once, didn’t I? That I would fuck you until you’re aching from it,” he curls his fingers with one particularly deep thrust and Rey gasps, her body jolting, “Until you’re aching from it, and still begging me for more.” Her hips thrust against him frantically, arms still struggling in his hold, and she is desperate for release. A shift of his hand and he’s rubbing his thumb hard on her clit as his fingers drive in and out of her, and when Rey finally cums she bucks on his hand, letting out a strangled sob and riding out the aftershocks until he withdraws his hand from her and gives it a swift shake to rid himself of at least some of the excess fluid.

Rey is panting, frustrated and still hungry for more, and frustrated further because of it. Her hands are still held over her and her wrists hurt from the bite of his hand and her struggling, her legs shivering in little spurts from the rush of climax. She works to catch her breath and he slowly unties the knot keeping his pants up, deliberately making her wait even longer. His own arm is getting tired as well, but he doesn’t let up, not yet.  
He can feel how eager she still is, though, and a smirk curls his lips up as he lets his pants fall around his ankles, freeing his cock at last. He leans in and kisses Rey’s forehead, too soft, too light, and chuckles at her disheveled state.  
“You want to cum again, don’t you,” he teases her, “You want me to _make_ you cum again.” Rey all but growls.  
“You act like you don’t want to fuck me all the same. It’s two ways, I know what you want too.” He smirks against her skin, murmuring low and reaching his free hand to slip his cock between her legs, slowly rocking up against her still-soaked cunt, but not inside, not yet.  
“What do I want, Rey?” She makes a rumbling sound in her throat, holding in a moan as her thighs squeeze together around him.  
“You want to fuck me. You want to ram your cock into me over and over, until it hurts the both of us--” His cock twitches at this, at the understanding that this isn’t all just desires she’s getting from him. Rey wants this, in some twisted fashion. She drives her dripping cunt down against his cock and jerks her head up slightly, clenching her teeth at the terrifying amount of _want_ and _hunger_ and _desire_ she feels; not like normal, not like the soft times they’ve intertwined, not like the nights, the mornings, the gentle afternoons they’ve laughed against each other’s skin and kissed until their breath is one--this is dark, a desire to devour, to overwhelm, to damage. His fingers crush her wrists together and he swoops his head down to bite into her shoulder, slowly rocking his hips into hers again. Rey groans and whimpers softly when his teeth feel enough to break her skin. It feels _good,_ why does it feel _good--_

He lets go of her wrists.

His hands grip at her hips, and Rey’s arms ache so much but she wants this, wants him, wants to hurt him, wants him to hurt her, wants to come and feel him come in her--  
“Beg me for it,” he growls against her skin, teeth dragging over the tender spot he’s just bitten. “Beg me for my cock, Rey.” She hisses at the scraping feeling, resisting still even if her nails rake down his back now.  
“I beg for _nothing_ ,” she snarls, smacking her hips into his, feeling his cock slip against the cleft of her ass, nails digging into his skin enough to make a tremor run through him. He bares his teeth against her and tugs his hips back enough to feel the head of his cock brush her entrance--and without warning, he drives up into her pussy, knocking the breath from her lungs and making her body quake around him. She tosses her head back, mouth open in a soundless scream, eyelids fluttering as he pulls her onto him, swift and hard until he hits that place that makes her thrash and whine with the stretch and the pain. His mouth is on her neck, now she’s bared her throat to him, and he feels the skin of his back stinging with the little slices her nails have managed.  
“Going to fuck you,” he grunts against her skin, sliding nearly entirely back out of her painfully slowly only to swiftly hilt himself in her pussy again. “Until you’re screaming,” another of these too-deep thrusts, “Until you can’t take anymore,” and another, drawing a squeal from her now, “Until we’re both raw from it,” there’s at least less of a delay between thrusts now, and she’s trying to breathe again, feeling teeth at her throat and his fingers gripping her ass hard enough she knows there are bruises. “And I want you to scream for me, Rey.”

He fucks her like a wild animal, hard enough to slam her back against the wall with his thrusts until she has enough of hitting her head and finally pushes back.  
Rey clings to his shoulders and uses her grip as balance to knock her hips back into his, pushing with the Force enough to make him stumble, cock slipping free of her cunt with a slick smacking noise. She feels the sudden emptiness and shivers, but it’s not enough to stop her from pulling her arms back around and shoving him back roughly. He grabs her wrists before he can fall away from her too far, though, and she gasps at the pain--oh her wrists are most certainly bruised, already blooming angry red and violet. She falls with him, both of them stumbling back towards the bed. He nearly slips, trying to find the edge of the mattress, but Rey shoves him back again, wrenching her arms away from him, nails slicing over his chest in the process. She pins him, this time, climbing over him and exerting enough of the Force on him to make him stay down for the moment. He strains, but Rey looms over him, breathing hard and straddling his waist. Her eyes are burning and wild, and Maker, he wants her more than he wants the breath in his lungs. She leans back on her arms over his legs and makes great show of rubbing the dripping folds of her cunt along his length.  
“If you want me to scream, you’d better fucking make me,” she taunts, “And _you’re_ the one who’s going to beg.” Slowly, she sits up, leaning up on her knees this time, staring down at him imperiously. He lets out a shuddering groan, rocking his hips up towards hers, desperate to fill her again, to feel her around him, to feel their bodies locked together. She doesn’t move. He glares up at her, flushed with need and even more aroused by the sight of her like this.  
“Let me fuck you.” He breathes, and Rey lets out a derisive laugh and then stops short, shaking her head.  
“Better than that.” _Fuck._  
“Please, Rey, let me fuck you-- _please_ \--” He is breathless in earnest, pushing at her Force-hold, cock straining against his abdomen and dripping with his own arousal and hers. Oh, he does not plead, but it feels _good_ to beg her. She likes this more than she should, too...no, she _loves_ this, the flush of his skin, the desperation in his voice, the wild look in his eyes. The little shiver of his huge body beneath her; the Jedi Killer laid out under her. She grinds her pussy down against his cock again, feeling him twitch and spasm under her as she leans in close to his face, dragging her short nails down his chest.  
“Beg me for this cunt.” Her voice is low and commanding. He shudders for her, groaning unabashedly.  
“Maker, Rey, let me fuck you--let me fuck you, let me feel your tight cunt around my cock--” he pushes against the restraint on him again, desperate to touch her, to force her down onto him, to crush her to his chest and rut into her until neither of them can tell where their separate bodies end and then fill her the way no one else ever, ever will.

She leans back up, bracing herself with one hand on his chest, still moving slowly even if she’s taking his cock in her free hand. Her eyes never leave his, burning against the horrid yellow as if daring it to try and consume her as well.  
“I didn’t say to stop.”  
“Let me touch you--let me touch you, let me touch you--” He sounds half-delirious and half-furious, consumed with desire for her, hips thrusting shallow into her hand. “Let me touch you, Rey, please, _please_ \--” Rey groans, slowly pumping his cock one firm time with her hand before shifting her hips up over him.  
“Not yet.” She stops when she feels the head of him prod her clit, and rubs his cock against that little nub briefly before positioning herself just right, and stopping again. He makes a furious sound, hands clawing at the bedding, ready to fuck her or tear her apart, or some mixture of both. She _smirks_.

“You want me to _make_ you cum,” She taunts, throwing his words from before back at him. He lifts his head, straining at the Force, feeling even the slightest give.  
“ _Yes_.” He hisses through his teeth, and Rey sinks down onto his cock.  
Her body arches over him, hips rocking slowly as she coaxes him in to the hilt. His hands ball into fists and he groans deeply, and she lets out the most lewd moan he’s ever heard her utter.  
“Ohhh…” She pauses when he’s buried inside her, glancing down to the slight bulge she can see just below her navel. A very tentative hand runs light fingertips over the vague curve in her own skin, and she groans, shuddering and clenching nearly blindingly tight around his cock. Fuck she’s tight, and seeing how much he’s stretched her makes him buck against her, bumping his cock into the barrier of her cervix and making her see stars. “ _Fuck…”_ She feels so full it’s hard to breathe, every little shift of her hips makes her shiver and jerk until she fights through it and lifts herself up, giving a few shallow thrusts onto him, reaching up to tease one of her own nipples as she rides him.  
He is absolutely seething by now, watching her. She is _glorious_ in her little display, but it is maddening to see her undulate over him without being able to take her himself. He struggles against her invisible bindings still, but she just stares down at him teasingly, fucking herself on his cock and drawing more and more of his desperation to the surface. Somehow, in spite of this, it just sends him closer to the edge.  
“Ohhh...fuck...Kylo, _yes--”_ She whimpers his name but still refuses to release him, and her little grin is anything but sincere. Her eyes are full of lust and power as she gazes down at him, knowing she is the one in control. Knowing that Kylo Ren, or whatever this beast in him is, lies prone beneath her, mad with desire and begging for her cunt, begging for _her_.  
Her thrusts grow faster, deeper, her hips gyrating over his until she finally reaches to rub at her clit herself, watching his face all the while. He is furious and hungry, and she feels herself smiling with smug satisfaction even as she throws her head back and cries out with her orgasm.

This one isn’t nearly so strong, and he takes some pleasure from that fact, knowing she wants more. She breathes hard and he feels her pussy still spasming around his cock as she leans forward to brace her arms on his chest again. He shoves hard at her Force barrier and feels it give more this time, and she lets out a breathy laugh, but he’s not nearly so playful.  
“Still didn’t cum yet, did you…” She jeers at him, and he stares up at her with those blazing, starving eyes.  
“You only _barely_ did.” She exhales slowly and he starts to seek out cracks in her hold on him as he distracts her. “But you want more. Let me give it to you, my Rey. Let me make you cum _properly_.” She tilts her chin up.  
“You think you deserve that from me?” He manages to roll his hips up against hers, shifting his cock just that much deeper into her, making her shudder.  
“You know I’m the only one who can. You want it, too, you want me to fuck you until you cum like that. Screaming for me and cumming all over my cock.” Rey shivers, taking a deep breath, but before she can respond, he finds what he’s looking for and with a vicious shove to her hold on him, he catches her off-guard and frees himself, lurching up to grab her arms and hold her in place as he drives completely up into her pussy again, hips meeting hers with a wet, vulgar, slap. She whimpers in surprise, bracing herself as he leans in close to her face. His voice is a furious hiss, possessive and dangerous.  
“Now you won’t have a choice, Rey.”  
His thrusts slam into her enough to rip whimpers and gasps from her with each stroke. His arms lock under hers and around her shoulders and hold her in place, one hand taking a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back to bare her neck to him, her tanned skin boasting new marks in red and violet and angry blue from his teeth. He leans his head in again, mouth roaming over the bruises, sucking and biting in places to make her cry out as he fucks her mercilessly.

She sobs for him now, fingers scrabbling for purchase and slicing up the skin over his shoulderblades. He bites her, sucks at her skin, licks the blood she feels seeping up--he makes to devour her, and Rey writhes in his grasp, ripping into his skin and sinking her teeth into his chest where she can, drawing him into her in kind.  
“Fuck, Kylo, fuck, fuck, _Kylo_ \--” she babbles breathless against his skin, drunk on the taste of him and the stretch, the pain, the bliss, of feeling too, too, too full, feeling him, his energy and that dark that is not alien or foreign but that is all _him_ consume her. He marks up the skin of her neck and collar with bruises and blood, smearing it over her skin and his and feeling her tear him apart in kind to match, mark for mark, blood for blood, frighteningly decadent.  
“Mine, you are mine, you are _mine,_ ” His breath is hot on her ear, “I will fuck the rest of them out of your head if I have to…” She makes a sound of reproach and his fingers tighten in her hair to silence it. _Why, why, why_ , she gasps, clutching at him, feeling his muscles shift under his burning skin, _The only one thinking of anyone else now is_ **_you_** _._

He pushes her onto her back and takes her legs firmly, slamming into her punishingly hard--and she cries out, shivering violently and painfully close to her release but he won’t move, his eyes boring into hers.  
“Tell me there is no one else.”  
“Wh--what--what…”  
“ _Tell me!_ ” She is desperate and frustrated, needing relief.  
“ _There is no one else!_ ” she nearly screams, her hips jerking against him, “There has never been anyone else, not since you, not since you, please, _please--I want to cum--!”_  
“There never will be,” he snarls, ramming into her over and over until she shrieks and constricts around him, thrashing against the bed, his name a jumble of sound on her lips. He spills into her and clutches her thighs and she _gushes_ for him, soaking them both before she goes limp, panting for breath, her legs still trembling in his grasp.

He crawls over her and feels his hot seed leaking out of her around him and she shudders, but he just smirks, fingers finding one of her peaked nipples and tweaking it roughly. She groans and her breath flutters when his cock slowly slips out of her with a wet pop and she can feel more of their cum trickle out of her. His teeth graze her cheek and his words are warm in her ear,  
“Roll onto your stomach. I’m not done with you yet.”

 

The next thing Kylo Ren remembers, it’s morning--grey and still rainy, but the storm has stopped.  
They are on the bed, himself and Rey, but the room is heavy with the smell of blood, and sex, and his eyes widen in fear as he turns to her.  
Naked and splayed out beside him, she is covered in bruises and scratches and smears of blood, and somehow sleeping soundly. His breathing shallows out and he feels his heart pounding in his chest. _What did he do--_ how could he _do_ this to her--he feels sick, feels panic rising in his gut and threatening to spill up from his throat. She stirs, disturbed by his sudden spike in panic, and groans in pain when she tries to move.  
“... _Fuck_ …” he reaches to her without touching her, terrified of what he’s done.  
“Rey--Rey--don’t move--” she blinks her eyes open, still, and inhales sharply, squinting at him.  
“Ky...Kylo…? Wha…?” She just sounds...tired. Aggravated at being woken. He feels sickeningly panicked, though, and she just stares in her hazy state as he tries to speak.  
“Rey I’m so--please Rey, I’m sorry--I’m sorry, I never meant to do this to you--”  
“Wh...whaaa?” She’s confused, but it registers after a moment that he is...he is himself, now. She reaches a tired hand up to touch his face gently, feeling a bruised cheek and trailing down to the dried blood on his split lip. “Ohh…” He’s so afraid of touching her, afraid of hurting her further, despite the ache in his own skin.  
“I don’t--I’m sorry--Rey...oh Rey…” She shakes her head though, and shifts some to take his face in her hands, drawing him in close.  
“Want a bath. Want some sleep,” she murmurs, and sinks into the bond with him.

He can touch her here, but still is so careful, so frightened.  
_Rey I--I never meant to do this to you--_ But she sees the cuts, the bruises, the bite-marks on him, and she shakes her head slowly.  
_I don’t...I don’t know what happened, I just...we were both so_ **_angry_** _…_  He is so gentle when he touches her face.  
_I hurt you--I hurt you, I’m so sorry Rey--_  
_I hurt you too. But I…_ she looks away, _I wanted it. I wanted to hurt you, wanted you to hurt me._ He blinks at her.  
_Rey…_ She looks up at his face now, and focuses on his eyes. There is a long moment in which neither of them speaks, but then she wraps her arms around him slowly, and holds him tightly.  
_You came back to me, though._ She shuts her eyes, and he swallows, fearing what she is going to tell him, knowing full well what took place. _You came back to me. I felt the dark coming for me too, but it’s gone now. I don’t know how or why._  
_Rey...I…_ He’s going to protest, but she takes a deep breath, and gives a slight shake of her head.  
_I don’t know why it went. I don’t know how. I know it...I know it felt good--but we...we weren’t ourselves. That wasn’t you, or me._ His brow knits and he looks away.  
_What if it was? What if that was me, what if that was who I really am?_ Rey’s arms tighten around him.  
**_This_ ** _is who you really are. You are yourself, and you came back. You always do, even if you wear the mask still._ He looks troubled, confused.  
_The mask…?_ She leans back, takes his face in her hands. She just gazes at him for a long moment, and he rests gentle hands on her forearms.  
_The mask. The name. Kylo Ren. It keeps you safe, in a way. But you aren’t the mask, or the darkness, Ben. You are mine._ He goes quiet at this, quiet and still, gazing back at her in awe.  
_Am I?_ His voice is so soft and tentative, she can only smile, nodding serenely.  
_Mm._ He is too afraid to say the words, too afraid he will sound like he did before, too possessive, too angry, too dark. She says them for him. _And I am yours._ His eyes widen slightly, his hands slide so gently up her arms to wrap her in a secure embrace.  
Rey rests her head against his shoulder, holding him close. He is himself again, and he is hers.  
_I am always yours,_ he rumbles in response, and Rey takes a quiet breath. She knows. She remembers the look on his face, remembers him under her and gazing up at her with those horrid eyes, but even then he belonged to her. The man feared across the galaxy as a warlord, a killing machine, and he stares up at her like he is praying to her. She shivers a little at the thought, at how good it felt, how good it feels . 

It can’t be right. It feels too good.  
_That’s the darkness,_ Ben murmurs into her hair, stroking the back of her neck so gently it makes her heart ache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....soooooooooooooooooooooo
> 
> welp that was a doozy, huh?  
> if you're still hangin' in then hey what's up yall are some real troopers  
> definitely some darker stuff coming up, unfortunately, but this chapter got away from me a bit.
> 
> few things:  
> \- rey don't play that shit.  
> \- don't insult finn >BI  
> \- kylo is a trashbird  
> \- yes, sam, those are sith!eyes  
> \- rey miiiight be in some trouble. depending on how you look at it.
> 
> rough sex is not a bad thing; on the contrary i think these two probably get super carried away all the time, like dang if you can use the Force then like what are you doing if you're not having wild sex the jedi were for real just missing out on a huge opportunity here  
> what IS a bad thing is if you totally lose control and give in to the dark side while you're banging your partner and you both just totally mess each other up because _well damn, just feels good to hurt_  
>  so i think they need to uh, address that.
> 
> after this week i am so ridiculous grateful if yall are still with me--i even tried to soften the reveal here by filling some dirty prompts on my blog last night, so i hope everyone is going to enjoy the smut or just skim a little and stay for the plot ; v; <3  
> thank you guys for reading and for any feedback!! i love all of you ; v; <3


	25. Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pillow talk.  
> Soft apology. Duality. An arrangement.

The day is stormy and gray. They stay in.

The bath is a quiet experience, the both of them careful touches and soft hands, winces from bruises and newly-discovered scratches. Rey wonders, silently, how her nails could have torn so efficiently. Kylo sees bite-marks and wishes without sound that the taste of her blood had stopped him.  
_It is over_ , they tell themselves, _and here we are still._

The bedding has been changed when they get back. The housekeepers are avoiding them, but they know it’s for the best.

They curl up in the sheets, this time their movements are careful and gentle, soft and cautious. Rey curls her arms around his head and tucks in against him, resting her forehead against his and running her fingers into his hair, rubbing circular motions into his scalp. He doesn’t understand how she is so comforting, or how she is still here with him, but he can’t bring himself to question it. Every time he has before, it leads him towards the dark again--and right now, all he wants is her light. He holds her close and takes the comfort she offers, and thinks that no one could be so absolutely vital to him after her. He prays to the Force that there will never be an ‘after her’.

Rey ends up curling up around Kylo in the end; she cradles his head to her sternum and strokes his hair, wrapping her legs around his waist. He holds her close, arms around her snugly, and he can hear her heart beating, feel the rise and fall of her breathing, the warmth from her skin transferring to his. She holds him almost like...

He recalls nights when he curled up with another woman, in a warm bed like this. She would smile, her hands smoothing down his hair as she held him to her chest.  
_“You’re gonna grow up to be so strong,”_ she would say, holding him tight and pressing kisses over his face and hair. He would struggle and wiggle in her arms to get away, but she held tight, laughing, _“But for right now, I’m still bigger than you, and I can still hold onto you all I want! My little prince…”_

Rey’s fingers stroke the hair away from his face and his voice is quiet.  
“Do you remember anything about your family?”   
Her fingers stop, and he’s instantly afraid he’s asked something he shouldn’t have. She resumes her petting after a moment, though, and gives a little shake of her head.   
“No.” Her voice sounds sad, disappointed even, and barely above a whisper. “Not even their faces.” He’s quiet for a long few moments after this, his thumbs stroking her back gently.   
“I’m sorry.” Rey shakes her head again, sighing softly.   
“I think I knew, long ago. Just fooled myself.” He hears the wry sadness in her words, and his arms tighten around her.   
“You knew? Knew what?”   
“That they weren’t coming back.”

His grasp is nearly crushing now as he holds her against him, and Rey just runs her fingers through his hair. It has been too, too long for tears now, but she feels his anger and his sadness in the bond, and it hurts.  
“You didn’t deserve any of that, Rey. You deserved a family, a home.” Rey feels her chest tighten and she holds his head close.   
“Thank you.”

 

They sink into the bond, and try at healing again. It takes a great deal of recycling energy between them, but slowly, the bruises and cuts begin to fade. Kylo Ren and Rey drift together, holding one another in a vast sea of the cosmos, their bodies slowly healing, their energy merging together in the endless sea of the Force.  
_Kylo?_ One soft star asks another.   
_Yes?_ The second replies.   
_You’re so bright,_ the first star sighs.   
_Only because you have such tired eyes,_ the second tells the first.

 

“The first time you talked to me, you seemed so…”  
“Awed?” He supplies, combing fingers through her hair. Rey rests back against his torso on the bed, letting him touch her as she did for him earlier in the day. The rain is still falling even as the sun dips behind the horizon and they are still unwilling to leave their bed. Rey smiles at his response, giving a quick nod.   
“Sure.” Then a pause. “Is that what it was?” He just nods.   
“Mm.” She’s quiet, waiting to see if he’ll expand on this. When he doesn’t, she tilts her head back slightly.   
“Why?” He gazes down at her for a long moment.   
“Because I knew you.” Rey’s gaze remains on his, but her voice is near inaudible.   
“I knew you, too.” He manages a small nod.   
“I saw you. I saw you in so many dreams...so many nightmares, so many visions…you summoned the lightsaber that night in the snow, and I knew.” Rey nods back.   
“I thought...I thought you were just a nightmare, I...saw all of the black, saw the red, I thought you were a monster, sent to frighten me sometimes.” He bites out a laugh, but Rey hears the sincere pain in his voice.   
“A monster…” She reaches a hand up to rest a gentle palm on his cheek.   
“If you are a monster, so am I.”   
“How do you figure that?”   
“We’re the same.”

He goes silent.  
“What?”   
Rey’s hand slides down to rest over the center of his chest.   
“We’re the same. Just...different.” He makes a face now, sure she’s joking.   
“I thought so…” She presses into his skin slightly, however.   
“No, I...we’re just...two sides of the same thing. The Force--we’re two sides of the Force, but not…” He reaches up to take her hand from his chest, squeezing it gently.   
“Light and Dark.”   
“But that’s not all there is. That’s not--it would be so different, so, so different! The Force isn’t...it isn’t...like that….” She trails off, a strange sort of realization dawning on her. He feels it too.

They shift, sitting up and facing one another. Their palms meet, fingers lace, eyes close, and they feel it, the Force.  
_Light,_ he says.   
_Darkness,_ she replies.   
_Balance,_ they breathe.   
They meet gazes again, exhaling as one.   
There is so much _more_.

The Force rushes around them, as if overjoyed they have found some answer to an ancient riddle. This is power, this is unlimited power, the power to command stars and destroy galaxies.

They inhale, focus, and their power swells. Their hands squeeze one another and they focus, focus, try to direct, to utilize this power.  
_What can we do?_ They ask together, and the Force swirls around them.   
_Anything and everything,_ it seems to answer, _if you care to try._ _  
_ So they try.

The galaxy flexes and contracts around them and becomes cold metal and echoing footsteps, the boots of soldiers and officers stepping in sync. They are on the Finalizer, completely unseen, it would appear. They stand amid stormtroopers during a drill, watching officers trot alongside the rows of white-armored soldiers. Both of them look around and see the ship as if they were standing there in person. Kylo Ren’s eyes find General Hux high on a bridge, overseeing the troopers in their marching, and his brow knits--but before they realize, they are there, standing nearby, close enough to the General to see the cold look in his pale eyes. Rey does not like this man; the pallor of his skin, the burning color of his hair. His eyes send a chill through her--and Kylo Ren squeezes her hands as if to say _You will never know how cold that man is_ , and Rey just gives a slight nod, focusing instead on how amazed she is by this, where they are, what they are doing.   
But there is another place she wants to see.

Again, the world shifts, and when it stills again, Rey feels Kylo Ren inhale sharply, feels his body freeze.

They are in the Resistance Base, watching a squadron of pilots talking about a mission, huddled in a small semi-circle around one person.

General Organa.

Rey’s hand grips Kylo Ren’s, and they near the small group. His heart is so still Rey is almost afraid it might stop altogether, but she looks up and sees his face, and she does not speak. She watches him reach out to the woman in front of them, fingers reaching towards her face as if to touch her, stopping short as his lips form a word he does not speak aloud. He studies her face, so much changed and still the same, he sees how small she looks now, how he towers over her, and yet...  
There is a tightness in his chest, in his throat, and he stares, stares, arm outstretched until suddenly Leia stops talking abruptly and turns her head, looking straight at them--Rey’s breath catches and for a moment she fears Leia has seen them, but then the older woman exhales softly as they try and withdraw their energy, and shakes her head, addressing the pilots again.  
_“It’s nothing, please continue…”_

The scene around them shifts again and they are back on Naboo, back in their bed, and Kylo Ren releases Rey’s hands to bow over and cover his face, hunched in on himself in front of her. Rey feels the deep pain welling up in him and reaches out, taking him into her arms and holding him close when he wraps his arms around her tightly, hiding his face against her chest. She says nothing, just holds him close and lets him hold her back. She is sympathetic, even if she does not understand this pain.

When they fall asleep at last, when he falls asleep at last, Rey is humming softly against his hair, something quiet and maybe familiar, something maybe she’s heard in town. He’s never heard her do this before. The quiet sound of her voice is possibly the loveliest sound he’s heard, and he thinks, as he drifts off, that he will give this girl the galaxy, no matter what it might cost him.

 

There is a great fuss when Finn and Rose return to D’Qar from their assignment.  
Finn heads straight for General Organa, sending word for Luke Skywalker to meet them as well. Rose handles the debriefing with the other commanders, but Finn goes to the General and her brother. He knows this is something they need to hear first, he knows this….should not become public knowledge. Not yet.

When Luke arrives, Finn is nearing the end of his story, but he pauses when the aging Jedi enters.  
“What’s this all about, Finn?” Luke asks gruffly, eyeing the former stormtrooper with some amount of quiet trepidation.   
“ _Rey_ ,” Finn states, his voice nearly trembling. “It’s about Rey.” Luke’s brow knits, and Leia looks concerned. Finn looks between them, obvious worry etched over his face as he continues. “Poe was telling me that Rey’s strong, that if she wants us to find her then we’ll find her, but...I don’t know. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to be found, and now…” He runs a hand over his hair, shaking his head, his brow knitting as he looks down, studying the floor for a moment. “I don’t...I don’t get it, this Force stuff. I mean, I get it, I...sometimes I think I even can feel it, you know? But…” He takes a deep breath, concerned, though something almost angry burns in his eyes. “But Rey’s on another level. I know that. I’ve seen what she can do, and I know…” Luke’s eyes narrow slightly.   
“What is it that happened, Finn?”   
“I saw her,” Finn exhales, “I _saw_ her, on Canto Bight!” silence falls over the three of them. Leia’s brow shoots up and Luke just looks questioning, suspicious. Leia shakes her head slowly.   
“How...you saw her?”   
“I spoke to her! She was...she was…” He waves his hands some, trying to call to mind the words to use. He still doesn’t understand what happened that day, and trying to wrap his head around it just makes him feel helpless and angry. “She was _glowing_. That’s the only word I can even think of. She looked so surprised to see me but she looked so _alive_. She was in this dress, and this jewelry, and makeup…” Leia and Luke both look startled at this.   
“A dress?”   
“She was in this black dress, and she just looked so...alive, like she was….like she was just so _happy_ , I can’t explain it! I don’t understand it, I don’t understand how she could be, not…” Leia’s throat feels tight and Luke turns to her now as she stares at Finn, her voice imploring.   
“What happened, Finn? Please.”

Finn does his best in explaining the brief conversation they had.  
“She kept saying she couldn’t come back yet, she had something to do--she didn’t tell me what. She just said she couldn’t come back, there was ‘too much’, and things were too complicated, too dangerous, and then she was going to say something--I said I would tell everyone she was all right, and she tried to stop me, was going to say something, and I saw _him--_ and they ran off, both of them, _together_!” Finn’s voice is all vitriol, and Leia’s breath dies in her throat. Luke is the one who speaks now, eyes narrow, voice low.   
“Who?”   
“Him. _Kylo Ren_.”

Leia’s eyes shut and she breathes deep, and Luke exhales slowly. Finn’s brow knits.  
“Did you know about this?? Did you know she was with him?!” Leia shakes her head some.   
“We...assumed. But now…” She shakes her head again, facing Finn. “And you don’t know why they were there, on Canto Bight?” Finn looks bothered, but shakes his head.   
“No. She didn’t say anything.” Luke frowns.   
“We need to put a stop to this. The mission could have been jeopardized, if these two have managed to find the same locations as our agents…” Leia turns to him in frustration.   
“We don’t know that! It could have been coincidence…” She sighs, hearing herself. “...But we have to treat it as if it definitely is not.” Finn frowns worriedly.   
“We still don’t know where they are, though. Canto Bight doesn’t keep security footage--we have no way of knowing how they got there or left.” Luke looks pensive, and Leia takes a breath.   
“They’ve come this close to us now...maybe we can get them to come out again.”

The two men turn to look at her questioningly.  
“What do you mean?” Leia looks displeased with this solution, but continues.   
“The upcoming gala on Chandrila. If we can somehow let them know that I'll be there, maybe it'll draw the two of them out.” Luke watches her quietly for a moment, but says nothing. Finn takes a deep breath.   
“That sounds too dangerous. You weren’t even planning to attend, General…” Leia’s brow sets, and she swallows some.   
“If it might give us a chance to find them, then I’ll do it. My resentment for the glamor of politics can sit back for a night, if it could mean finding the two of them.”   
Luke’s eyes are hard.   
“You understand what this will mean if we do.” Leia nods sadly, eyes downcast.   
“Of course I do.”

  
The Skywalker twins linger a bit longer in Leia’s office once Finn leaves. Luke regards his sister quietly, understanding this is not an easy decision for her.   
“You seem convinced this will work.” Leia exhales, nodding.   
“I think they'll try and contact me. I think they’ve been trying to reach out.” Luke’s brow goes up slightly.   
“What?”   
“I thought I felt them, a day or two ago. Just for a moment, but it was like they were right there in front of me. I think they’re testing their reach, but…”   
“If they’re doing something like that, then it might be just as we feared. We can’t put everything in danger--the future of the Resistance, the outcome of this war, the future of the _galaxy_ \--not even for them.” His voice is heavy, and Leia feels the weight of the universe on her shoulders.   
“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh...
> 
> so, a shorter chapter. compared to last week's monster this one is like nothing. @_@  
> i think we got a good few things established this week though. i feel like i'm delaying the inevitable and trying to keep them on naboo longer > n< i'm sorry, guys!  
> the force works in mysterious ways...
> 
> as always, thank you guys all so much for reading and sticking around!  
> i'm so grateful for all of your feedback and your support, thank you all so, so much. <3


	26. Gambit | I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _First Act:_  
>  Crescendo.  
> Detail. Deliberation. Decision.

The next week is spent living as if they feel something rapidly approaching.

Neither can put their finger on what, or why. Just _something_ \--something looming and mildly foreboding, something they don’t speak of to one another but understand they both sense.  
They walk through the lake country, down old dirt paths that lead between old family homes. Rey waves to families at play in their yards, and more than once the two of them are offered cool drink and a bite of food simply to provide a bit of hospitality; Kylo marvels silently at this sort of generosity, and Rey accepts wholeheartedly. They share chit-chat with the people here over shared baskets of fruit and cupfuls of juice until they reach one home, and Rey casually asks what else is just down the road they’ve been walking along.  
“The Naberrie residence,” the smiling woman says softly, “Such kind people, in spite of it all.”  
Kylo decides they’ve walked far enough down this road for the day.

They tour through Theed, see the public spaces in the palace. Rey marvels at it all--everything is so solemn, so peaceful and silent. Kylo seems strangely introspective today, and when they pass a small hallway with a soft glow emanating from it, Rey breaks from the small tour group and slips off to explore.  
The hallway leads to a small alcove, overlooked by a huge window of painted glass. Under the window were set candles, flowers… Rey is surprised by this, but as she stands and takes in the image the glass creates, she understands.  
A young woman with a pale face, her hair in an ornate style like a crown on her head. She seems solemn, but as Rey stands watching, the woman seems to move, and Rey is stunned but not afraid. Her eyes are soft and sad as she regards Rey, the candlelight turning her pale white face somewhat gold. The two stare for a long moment before Rey speaks up, her voice barely a whisper.  
“Padmé. You’re Padmé, aren’t you..?” The woman gives Rey a slow, silent nod just as someone comes up behind her.  
“A lovely tribute to her, I think.” Rey turned to face a man, his hair gray, his face lined. He looks like someone who works here, a politician perhaps. Rey turns back to the window, but there is no longer movement in the woman there. She nods.  
“...She is...very beautiful.” The man nods as well.  
“She was. I only got to see her once in my life; just once. That was many, many years ago--but I’ll remember her face that day for as long as I live.” Rey glances up at him.  
“She was a queen here, wasn’t she?” The man nods.  
“Yes, at first. That was before I was born--when I saw her, she was a senator. She represented Naboo in the Galactic Republic--before the days of the Empire. Before all of the darkness.” Rey gazes at the window again, taking a slow breath.  
“People really seem to love her.”  
“She was a brave woman. And very kind. She did so much good for the galaxy--the people here will always be grateful to her.”

Kylo finds her after a time, still speaking to the man in the alcove.  
“Re--Veré. I was _looking_ for you…” The man turns to look at him as Rey does, and gives him a small nod, though his eyes are appraising, almost recognizing.  
“Sorry--I wandered off…” Rey laughs sheepishly, she turns to the man, nodding at Kylo. “My _cousin_ , Set.” The man’s face looks somewhat surprised, but he nods slowly, offering a handshake.  
“Senator Doric Rillio. A pleasure to meet you; your cousin and I were just talking about the late Senator Amidala.” Kylo’s eyes flick to Rey and she nods.  
“I saw this memorial, and I…” she turns to look up at the glass portrait of Kylo’s grandmother. “I was just...very struck by it.” Senator Rillio nods, following her gaze for a moment.  
“She was quite a striking woman. Your cousin looks a bit like her, actually; at least, during her days in the senate.” Rey looks startled at this, and Kylo clearly wasn’t expecting this either.  
“I--that’s...very nice of you to say…” Rey murmurs, looking down some. She’s a little flustered by this, and Kylo offers her his arm.  
“We should really be going. The tour is over; and we’ve got to head home…” Senator Rillio nods.  
“Of course. Where are you two from? I would be happy to speak more with you at length when you have time!” Rey smiles at this.  
“We’re from Coruscant, just visiting. We’re staying in the lake country, though--”  
“We’re staying in Varykino at the moment. I’m sure we can send along an invitation soon, Senator.” Kylo cuts Rey off with a civil nod to the senator. Senator Rillio looks rather surprised at this, but nods.  
“Oh, it would be a delight to visit Varykino--how fitting for someone interested in Padmé Amidala…”

They excuse themselves politely with the promise that they’ll invite him to dinner soon, but as they depart, the aging senator watches them go with a puzzled expression.  
“I could have sworn she said their names were Set and Veré...from Coruscant….? Hmm... Perhaps I’m getting old.”

Rey glances up at Kylo as they leave the castle, a bit confused about that interaction.  
_Is everything all right…?_ Kylo’s eyes stay focused ahead of them.  
_I haven’t seen him since I was a child. He’s been a Senator for a long, long time; my...mother knows him._ Rey’s eyes widen some.  
_You don’t think he recognized you--_  
_I can’t imagine how. He didn’t seem to, anyway. Just thought I looked familiar._ Rey’s arm around his tightens some.  
_He seemed very kind._ Kylo gives a slight nod.  
_He was one of the few who stood with my mother even during the...uproar...when it was revealed her father was Darth Vader._ Rey looks saddened at this.  
_I see…_

 

“I never taught you that!” Kylo Ren’s voice is surprised, calling to Rey from his place a good few yards back in the grass now. Rey swings her lightsaber in a few arcs before holding the blade out in front of herself. Both are breathing harder now, and Rey shakes her head some.  
“It just...sort of came to me.” Kylo nods some, shutting off his burning red blade and approaching her again.  
“That was...that was a good execution. That was a form from Soresu.” Rey blinks, shutting off her blade as well.  
“Really? That’s...form...twwooooo….?” She finishes cautiously, uncertain of her answer. Kylo shakes his head.  
“Form three. We haven’t...studied it, or form two either.” Rey raises an eyebrow.  
“What’s form two?”  
“Makashi.” Rey nods slowly.  
“Oh. Then we’ve been studying...what form?”  
“Mostly Djem So and Juyo.” Rey’s quiet, and he continues. “Forms five and seven.” Rey nods slowly again, still looking curious.  
“You sort of use them both together.” Kylo looks away a bit.  
“I never mastered either of them.” Rey shakes her head.  
“Mastery must take years. It’s not like you’re an old master like--”  
“--Like Skywalker.” He looks more glum than he means to, but Rey rolls her eyes, flopping down into the grass with her saber.

“Luke’s got a lot of years on both of us. Of course he knows more.” Kylo takes a seat next to Rey, watching the grass flowing over the hillsides ahead of them in the afternoon sun.  
“I should know more. I’ve been studying for a long time--I should be master of at least one form by now.” His brow is knit, and Rey sighs, looking up at the sky.  
“You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. You’re a great fighter; you’ve taken on Luke yourself and you’re still here. And you’ve got time. We’re still young.” Kylo lets out a deep sigh, and Rey shakes her head. “We have time to work on things.”

There’s quiet for a bit, until Rey looks back down at the saber hilt beside her.  
“You said I did a form from So….”  
“Soresu.”  
“You don’t like that form?”  
“I never said that.” Rey cocks her head slightly.  
“But it’s not your preferred form.” Kylo shakes his head.  
“I don’t...it just never resonated with me. I never found much ease in the stances of it.” Rey nods a little.  
“It felt natural to do.” After a moment, “Is there a way for me to study the other forms more?” Kylo is silent for a beat, and then nods some.  
“Maybe if we look into my memories of studying them myself.”

 

They’re in the bath when conversation really strikes again. Rey is rubbing at a singe she managed to get on one of her legs, hoisting her knee up towards her chest as she sits on some of the partially-submerged steps. Kylo eyes her from nearby, watching her inspect the burn.  
“All right?” Rey nods.  
“Just a burn. Nothing serious. I think I had some hair growing in there…” Kylo’s brow knits slightly and then raises.  
“Is that...not...normal...?” Rey shrugs.  
“Had it chemically removed years ago.” She says this so nonchalantly his brow shoots up.  
“What?” Rey stretches out, slowly submerging her burnt leg into the water again.  
“Mmm--long time ago; I got real hurt during a scavenge, once. Broke my leg,” she pats her left thigh, “And a few ribs. Had to be taken into Niima for a few days.” Kylo has started to drift over to her now. The memory clearly isn’t a terrible one; she’s recalling this all very leisurely, like any other story of a trip-and-fall. Rey yawns some, stretching her legs again, gazing at her freckled skin under the water. “There’s not really a clinic; and I’m--er--I _was_ a scavenger. They hauled me to one of the pleasure houses--” Rey feels something sort of snap in the Force and rolls her eyes. “--Just to get patched up and sleep it off. Really, did you think I didn’t know what all of that was? Force…” Kylo’s expression is dark as he drifts over to perch near her on the stairs.  
“I don’t know everything about your past,” he grumbles, and Rey gives him a look.  
“And I don’t know everything about yours. I slept at a brothel for like two days, the girls were all very kind. Made sure I had something to eat and some water--and that’s more than I could say some nights when I was on my own.” He regards her quietly when she says this, but Rey just shrugs, rubbing her knees a little and watching the water as she slowly kicks her feet back and forth beneath the surface. “Almost thought about joining them, back then. At least it seemed to be comfortable. But they weren’t...really _happy_. Most of them dreamed of someone taking them off-planet one day. Anyways, while I was there, they used to show me all of their jewelry and their clothes, and they hauled me in one night and gave me a chem-treatment; said I had a pretty face, and if I took care of myself then someone was bound to come along and take me away--” she snorts, shaking her head, and now there is something sad in her eyes. “...I only wanted my family to come back. That was all. And I didn’t think they’d care if I had hair on my legs or under my arms, or if I had so many freckles….” Before she knows it, there is an arm around her shoulders, and she lets Kylo draw her in against his side. She feels tears coming and hates it, and can’t really place why.

“Every so often I’ll get a...a patch or two of hair on my legs, under my arms. Sometimes it gets long--but it always just falls off. Such a weird thing to worry about. I never cared, I just wanted to live through the next day. But the people who weren’t fighting to survive like that...the people who relied on their appearances…” She flexes her toes underwater, and shrugs a little again, swallowing. “...I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much…I’m not particularly trying to attract anyone...” Kylo snorts a little at this, and Rey can’t help but smile, glancing up at him. “Somehow I wound up stuck with you anyways.” Kylo nods, running a hand through his wet hair.  
“It was absolutely those hairless legs of yours.” Rey elbows him in the ribs, but he just laughs at her, and she thinks, watching him in the low light of the bath, that he’s never been quite so handsome.

 

That night, they lie in bed in the dark, silent until they both know they’re not falling asleep yet. Rey shifts around to face Kylo in the dim light filtering in from the lanterns outside.  
“When you mentioned...when you mentioned it getting out who your grandfather is...what did you mean?” Kylo sighs.  
“It wasn’t public knowledge. That my mother and uncle...that they were the children of Darth Vader. Up until that point, Leia Organa was the daughter of Bail and Breha Organa of Alderaan. It was...leaked to the media, before she’d even told me. I found out that my grandfather had been Darth Vader, the last Sith Lord, from holos and tabloids.” His voice is bitter, and Rey reaches to link fingers with him under the sheets.  
“That...that must have been a shock.” Kylo snorts derisively.  
“I felt the pull of the dark from the moment I was born. I can’t remember not knowing what the dark feels like--I remember that cold darkness better than I remember most things from my childhood. When my mother had me start training with my uncle, when I was in the academy he’d created...I knew I wasn’t like them. They didn’t feel the darkness like I did. They didn’t know it like I did.” Rey’s brow knits slowly, listening to this. “Snoke...I could hear him, even then. He knew how powerful I was. He…” Rey is silent, listening to this with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something about this is wrong, making her feel ill, and uneasy. He senses this, and stops, just looking at her in the near-dark. She is trying to assess her feelings, trying to pinpoint what is setting her on edge, and he looks at her questioningly until she does speak up finally.

“What do you mean...you could ‘hear’ him?” She does not like the taste of these words on her tongue. Kylo swallows some, thinking.  
“I could hear his voice. I didn’t...know it was his, at the time. But I heard it, I knew that it knew me, could see inside my head, inside my hear--”  
“Doesn’t that...I don’t know, doesn’t that _bother_ you?” She asks suddenly, frowning. “How did he know you, back then? And...and you were so _young_ …” He goes quiet. Rey’s hand has gotten tighter around his, but there is fear in her. Kylo’s brow knits some, and he moves closer to her.  
“It bothers me some now.” He admits quietly. “But back then...I didn’t know any better. I thought that I had someone who actually understood me, who sympathized with me.” Rey frowns, considering this. How often had she wondered if there was anyone out there watching out for her, anyone who cared?  
“You know he didn’t really care, don’t you?” She asks very quietly. “All he wanted was to use you.”  
“Yes I know.” Kylo Ren’s voice is hard, and for a long moment there is silence.

“There _are_ people who really care about you, though.”

 

They continue on their touring of the countryside. Their daily walks get longer, wandering into the nights.

They work at hiding their presence. Afternoons into nights spent playing cat and mouse in the forests and even in Varykino itself. They improve--Rey improves, really, since Kylo Ren has practice under his belt--until their game is real and truly surprising for them, each taking turns creeping up on the other.

Training continues. Where once they were matched near evenly, now Rey’s form is evolving, changing, and he does not know how she masters it so quickly, but he does not know all of these moves, all of these stances. He is impressed, awed, curious.  
“The Force is what gives a Jedi their powers,” she responds when he asks, giving him a quirk of a smile. Kylo gets the strangest feeling in his gut that these words are not her own. He does not know who else they would belong to.

 

_“Told you, I did,” the old voice rattles, “Reckless is he.”_  
_“That boy is our last hope,” the reply, tired, sad. ‘Luke,’ Rey understands, ‘He means Luke…’_  
_“No. There is another.”_  
_“Another, Master?”_ _  
“Mysterious, the future is. Always changing. Never clear to see. The Force, always at work...always changing, mmm….”_

 

Rey’s form continues to improve. Where before, she and Kylo were near perfectly matched, now there is more of a challenge in their fights. They relish it--sparring is exciting, surprising, even, and now they have more opportunities to practice healing one another through the bond. Still...the more they practice, the more it becomes impossible to ignore the rage that Rey feels, the power she commands. She is a force of nature, capable of cracking boulders and gusting wind, the Force churning around her as she clashes with him. Her eyes seem to glow when they fight this way, she is vibrant and alive in these moments, overflowing with power, and he meets her just as excitedly, blow for blow, step for step, until one of them slips just so and then either of them is sent sprawling by the other only to hop back up, laughing, and charge back in again.

Their downtime is spent drifting.

They probe around the galaxy, letting the Force carry them as it will. They see planets far beyond the Outer Rim, glimpses of past and present, and sometimes, sometimes, the future--they recognize it as such because the visions are blurred and shifting, fleeting, and like dreams; hard to recall again once they are gone.  
They witness First Order attacks on other planets. Resistance fighters working to beat them back, ships and ground troops rushing in where they can, but it is not enough. Rey watches them fighting and wants to help them, and Kylo Ren senses it, but can do nothing for her.

They are lying in the grass one day when they come back to the surface, back to their bodies in the here and now, and Rey swallows, staring up at the sky.  
“...They’ll never stop. Neither side. Not until the other is gone entirely--and that’ll never happen either.” Kylo nods, eyes hard. He squints in the sunlight, watching the few clouds overhead slowly inch past.  
“There’s never an end to it, to any of it. The Sith became the Empire.”  
“The Jedi became the Rebellion.” Kylo nods.  
“The Empire became the First Order.”  
“The Rebellion became the Resistance. And it’ll just become something _else_ if the Resistance is wiped out.” Her throat feels tight, “No matter what, if there is injustice in the galaxy there will be someone, anyone, who’s going to fight back.” Kylo shuts his eyes.  
“It’s the way of the galaxy. It always has been.”  
“But _why_?” Rey’s sitting up when Kylo opens his eyes again, staring down at him.  
“Why what?”  
“Why is this just ‘how things are’? On Jakku, there was no First Order, no Resistance. There was just...work. And life, and death. Survival. It wasn’t about allegiances or battles or _sides_. Everyone was fighting to _survive--_ ”  
“--And that’s what you’re saying the galaxy should be like?”  
“No! There’s--there’s never going to be an end to fighting. No matter what; but what _can_ change is what everyone is fighting _for_. Your people--”  
“ _My_ people--?”  
“--what do they want? What is all of this for? To bring ‘order’ to the galaxy?” Kylo sits up now, brow knitting.  
“Yes, that’s what they’re trying to do, but--”  
“Order through _fear._ And _violence._ ”  
“Sometimes that’s the only way to achieve order.” Rey stares at him.  
“You really believe that?”  
“Show me a ruler who is good and kind and righteous, who lives long and without any kind of troubles at their door. You can’t have order, peace, without force or violence.”  
“And fear, you forgot fear.” She narrows her eyes, and he sighs, frowning.  
“Rey, there will always be those who live in fear, no matter what--”  
“But if you want order and peace, why shouldn’t that be for _everyone_?”  
“If they comply with the ruling regime--”  
“So what happens when the ruling regime is wrong? What happens when everything they stand for is wrong, and...and terrible?” She looks frustrated, unable to articulate herself properly. “I don’t have the words for this--I don’t _know_ the words for this! But I know that the First Order is _wrong_. And you know it, too.” He’s silent for a long moment, taking a breath and watching her before looking away.  
“It’s all that’s left of the Empire. It’s just an evolved form of what they worked to achieve.”  
“And the Empire came from Pap--Pala--”  
“Emperor Palpatine. Darth Sidious.” Rey nods.  
“‘All that was left’ of the Sith.” He lets out a long, quiet sigh.  
“Yes.”  
“That doesn’t just...seem _wrong_ to you?”  
“What’s the alternative? Bringing back the old Jedi Order?” He scoffs some, but she knows it’s just out of frustration, “You know what became of them. There’s no winning situation here.” Rey stares at him, determined.  
“Why not?”

He meets her eyes, brow knitting slightly.  
“What?”  
“Why can’t there be? Why can’t there be a winning outcome?”  
“...this war is too big for something like that.”  
“You don’t really believe that…”  
“Why shouldn’t I? I’ve seen all of it, Rey. I’ve been in the middle of it, right at the forefront of battles.”  
“Kylo together we have power that I can’t...that I can’t even _begin_ to describe. We’ve--” she waves her arms some, “We’ve seen other planets, we’ve controlled the Force itself, we--we have the _bond_ \--you don’t think there’s _something_ we can do about all of this fighting, all of this...this...darkness?” He turns, watching wind rolling over the grass around them.  
“Rey, the darkness will never be gone. You can’t get rid of it, _we_ can’t get rid of it.”  
“No,” she agrees, “We can’t. We shouldn’t.”  
“Without darkness, there isn’t--”  
“There’s no balance.”

He turns to look at her again, and nods slowly.  
“No, there’s no balance that way.” She nods back.  
“That’s why neither side is going to win. Ever. That’s why Luke couldn’t stop all of it before, why the Jedi couldn’t continue, why the Sith died out. It’s...it’s not about Light, or Darkness, it’s about a balance to everything. Otherwise there’s just…”  
“Chaos.” His voice is quiet, low. Rey nods.  
“And war. And death, and just...more darkness. But with nothing, with no shadow…”  
“With no shadow, the Light will only grow weak, until it starts to fade.” Rey nods, very slowly reaching to rest her hand on his.  
“But together, there’s strength. There’s struggle, but it’s good struggle.” He snorts at this, sliding his fingers together with hers.  
“There’s always going to be fighting, but if there’s a balance of light and dark then it’s...well, healthy. Normal.” Rey looks a little sheepish, nodding.  
“That’s what I meant.” She takes a deep breath, exhaling quietly. “But how do we create a balance. That’s...that’s what we have to do.”

There is a sort of...hum, around them. A tremor of energy in the Force, as if encouraging this line of thought. Kylo Ren looks pensive.  
“The Empire crumbled when Palpatine was killed.” Rey’s brow furrows.  
“We have to take out Snoke.” Kylo swallows and Rey feels his apprehension. “We can do it.” He shakes his head, shutting his eyes.  
“Rey, he’s…” Her fingers curl around his, tightening.  
“We can do it, together.”  
“Rey, he’s not...he’s nothing like anything you’ve ever faced before.” He doesn’t speak the words aloud, but Rey feels them all the same. _I am afraid of that, I am afraid of that darkness, of that terror, after all of this. After you._  
_You’re so stupid sometimes,_ she replies, a smile curling over her face, _I’ll still be with you._ _  
_ He does not share her confidence, and she knows.

They explore some of Naboo’s planetwide oceans, and Rey discovers how fascinating water-travel is. She’s excited to be back in the pilot’s seat of a craft again, though she and Kylo argue about who’s at the controls the entire trip.

_How can we help?_  
_Any way we can find._  
_We can’t get near them, any of them. And even if we could, the only one who might listen…_  
_If we can talk to her, even just for a moment--_  
_Do you think it would work?_  
_I think she would listen to us. I think she would at least give us that. I think she would at least give_ **_you_ ** _that._ _  
Even if you’re right, we don’t have the chance._

The next time they drift into the Force, they sense _Leia_ \--and Kylo Ren tentatively tracks her to investigate. They watch, silent, unseen observers, as General Organa listens to other Resistance members argue and debate over what to do, how to proceed. How can they hope to gain the upper-hand again? Now even the jedi girl is gone. Leia is heavy with grief and burden and weariness, and Rey feels Kylo’s chest constrict as if it were her own.  
“You intend to still go to Chandrila, General Organa?! Even in the midst of all of this?!” One of the senators exclaims, staring at the older woman across the murmuring crowd. Their invisible observers fall very silent now, listening.  
“I will go to show that I--that we--are not going to be snuffed out this easily. The Resistance will not die, not back down, even in the face of the First Order’s terror tactics.” Her voice is strong and her gaze is unwavering. The mood of the room begins to shift, Rey and Kylo can feel it around them. General Organa, Leia Organa, is radiant in the Force: she is a _beacon_ , a shining light of righteous fury and unfaltering resistance--of _hope_ . The room begins to shift, the Force flows around her, around them as they drift nearby, through the room, and there is building optimism around them all now. “Chandrila is a neutral ground still; a small squadron of pilots will be on standby if their people try anything foolish. If there is anything to be learned or gained from this gala, then I will root it out myself.”  
_Chandrila,_ they breathe in unison, meeting each other’s gaze with a sudden understanding, an idea, _Chandrila._

 

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Rey turns to look at him across the bed as she tugs her boots on, raising an eyebrow.  
“Of course I do.” Kylo has been pacing for near half an hour now, already in his dark clothing, having readied in a hurry. He is vibrating with tension and anxiety, and Rey reaches out to still the worry in him as she tightens the cords on her boots and stands again. He shakes his head, though, stopping to look at her.  
“It’s going to be dangerous. No matter what anyone says about Chandrila being neutral, it doesn’t matter. If it gets out that General Organa will be there…” He swallows, head snapping around abruptly to look out the open balcony doors. He does not want to follow that trail of thoughts, but then Rey is there, her hand on his arm, her voice firm and comforting.  
“She’ll be better protected than we will--and if anything happens, we’ll be able to get away. There’s bound to be plenty of ships there if we get desperate.” He frowns down at her.  
“Something about this doesn’t feel right.” Rey sighs softly, nodding.  
“I know. But it’s the only shot we have at trying to see her ourselves. She won’t have bodyguards right there with her the entire time.” His fingers tighten into fists at his sides.  
“If things--if anything happens, if we sense _anything_ , you have to leave immediately.” Rey frowns, brow knitting.  
“What the hell do you mean _I_ have to leave immediately? If we go, we go together, and we leave together.” He just takes a long breath, eyes leaving hers, but Rey isn’t having it. She reaches up and takes his face in her hands, turning him to face her and then leaning up some until he’s forced to look her in the eyes. “We go together, and we _leave_ together. Do you hear me?” He reaches up a hand to rest on hers.  
“Rey…” Her gaze seems to only intensify.  
“ _Do you understand me_?” He manages a nod.  
“We leave together.”  
He does not fully mean it. Rey does not press further. She won’t let it come to that.

Chandrila is a fairly lengthy trip on public transport. Their lightsabers are carefully hidden but they manage to pass right past the spaceport security, boarding a ship bound for their destination and settling in for their ride. There are murmurs about the gala, about the senators and representatives that will be present--most seem star-struck and eager to see such people with their own eyes, others, older passengers, passengers that, when they glance around, look much more world-weary and weathered, worry that something will happen this night.  
_What will we do when we get there?_ She keeps their conversation silent.  
_Find her. Try and get close._  
_If we can at least just tell her to trust us--if we can give her even the smallest bit of information…_  
_I have information. At least enough to keep them running distraction for us._ Kylo is steadfast in this much, at least. Rey nods.  
_Then I’ll keep you clear so you can get close. Tell her what you can, and then…_  
_And then we run._ Rey takes a quiet breath, nodding in agreement as she exhales again.  
_And then we run._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part one of my return from hiatus.  
> it's been such a long time, all of this feels a little alien now. 
> 
> stay tuned:  
> part two will be up saturday, 11/18.


	27. Gambit | II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Final Act:_  
>  Courante.  
> Disquiet. Alarm. _Trahison._

Chandrila is green and blue and beautiful in the viewports as they approach. They are landing on the dark side of the planet now, and lights twinkle in the cities below as if in greeting. Several other passengers have been talking about going to catch a glimpse of the visiting senators, and so Rey and Kylo Ren have decided to follow them for now, cloaks covering their clothing and hoods covering their faces. Rey is the better of the two at getting past guards and using the Force to deflect anyone talking to them, so she gets them through security and out of the spaceport, onto a transit shuttle to take them into Hanna City to the Old-Gather House where the gala is being held.

They can sense so much energy as they approach; Kylo feels nervous, some of these people may recognize him. Rey takes his hand and does what she can to calm him as they disembark in front of the huge building.

This is unlike anything Rey has ever seen before. There are men and women shouting and taking recordings of the glamorous senators and their companions as they enter the gala building. Rey’s eyes are wide and her jaw is a bit slack, but Kylo nudges her some to get her attention,  
_Don't gawk. Look like you belong here._  
And they duck around to the side of the building to find another entry point.   
It doesn’t take long. There are guards, but they take little time to bypass, and once the two are inside they get rid of their cloaks and smooth down their hair and clothing.

They’ve suppressed their energy and dressed to fit into the crowd; Kylo feels more himself in black, layered clothing, gloves in place and hair combed but loose. Rey is in gold--her gown is tawny silk patterned with clusters of stars and sparkling lines between, it glitters and even very quietly seems to chime with each movement of her skirt, but they look downright _tame_ compared to some of the other guests. If he weren’t so distracted, Kylo would be so much more appreciative of how she looks, but instead he just offers Rey his arm and they both breathe as one, following their senses to find where they need to be.   
_I can feel her--_ Kylo’s voice is hurried in the bond, _She’s here, she’s close!_ Rey nods, holding his arm a little tighter.   
_I feel her too. We’ll find her, just keep walking._

They enter the glittering, chattering throng of people, and it’s even more glamorous than Canto Bight. Here, there are _colors_ . Rey has to keep herself from staring--there are colors, and sounds and smells, there are colors she doesn’t think she’s even seen before, and jewels and metals...Kylo smiles at her reaction, leaning in slightly.   
“They won’t particularly care if you _do_ stare. That’s what all of it’s for.” He straightens again and looks rather jaded on all of this, “Believe me,” he says dryly, “I know.” Rey nods slowly, looking around as they wade through the groups of guests, into the sea of creatures.

Something feels...strange. Not quite right.

They both sense it, but they have an objective right now.   
...They do seem to hold a bit more tightly to one anothers' arms, all the same.

 

Everyone seems so different here. Canto Bight was a low murmur and muted colors--but here, there is laughter and shouting, loud voices and bright colors. Rey tries foods as they pass trays of it, tries to grab at drinks, but Kylo stops her there.  
_Keep your wits about you, will you?_ _  
_ _It’s just one! Don’t be so anxious, we are going to find her. You said it yourself, we need to fit in._ She takes the drink and gives him a sidelong glance as she drains the little thin glass. He looks a bit grumpy, but doesn’t say anything else.

She knows he is on edge. Rey does her best to keep him calm, but she doesn’t understand fully what he is risking this way. Already they are garnering stares, but they never stand anywhere long enough for anyone to really recognize him. Or her.

After wading around in the crowds for a while, they finally sense it, closer than before. Kylo goes still, and Rey’s eyes scan the room until she sees it: a doorway into the next room. A woman in dark clothing, not particularly engaging with anyone else. Rey’s breath catches and she looks up at Kylo Ren, squeezing his arm and nudging them both forward.  
_We have to do this, we have to do this now,_ she urges, and feels some amount of resistance in him.   
_It’s too soon this was wrong this isn’t going to work too soon can’t do it can’t face her_ Rey feels his heart start beating faster and does what she can to try and calm him, taking his hand in hers and pushing as much of her inner peace into him, but it does little to settle him. _We have to stop we have to go back we can’t do this I can’t do this--_ But Rey knows, Rey knows they have to, this is their only chance, and she gets them both to the doorway, but Kylo’s anxiety has caused their control to slip just slightly...

 

General Organa is alone now; the other senators that were speaking with her before have excused themselves. This is a small antechamber, a very small round room with windows overlooking a courtyard below, and the Chandrilan sky above. The General looks somber, facing the windows, until something--

She turns, and comes face-to-face with two people practically fighting to get through the small doorway into the room. Her breath catches, and her mouth opens slightly at the sight of them.

A young woman, in a gown of silk and gold. Her hair is long and partially-braided but loose, her freckled skin more sun-kissed than before, Leia thinks. She looks vital, and lively, and her energy is...is so _different_ , now.   
A man. No longer so very young, no longer a boy. He wears black still, and stands much taller than his companion. Much taller than Leia, now. His hair is so much longer than she remembers, his face so much older, scarred now, but so different and always, always the same--  


“...Ben…”

  
The room goes silent. Rey and Kylo look up to realize she’s seen them, hands still clasped, bodies still turned to face one another as Rey tries to convince him this is the right thing to do. General Organa, Leia Organa, stares at them with parted lips and sad eyes, one hand over her heart. Rey feels Kylo go very, very still, and she squeezes his hand, taking a breath, breathing into his lungs and making her heart beat with his.   
_I am with you. We can do this. You can do this._

Kylo Ren breaks away from her slowly, hesitantly, but feels Rey still in his chest, strengthening him. His eyes are only on the woman standing in front of them as he takes cautious steps towards her. Towards his mother.

He looks so careful and hesitant, afraid, even, as he approaches the smaller woman, and Rey wants to stay and be support, but she has more to do--and she senses something close by. She casts a final look at General Organa and Kylo Ren, and slips back out the door, into the crowd once more.

 

“Ben.” She says the name so softly, so gently, and he feels like a child again. No, this cannot go this way--  
“I can’t--please don’t call me that,” His mouth is dry, but the words find their way out anyways. Leia swallows some, her eyes so tired and so sad. Oh, he's missed her so much...the only one he ever regretted leaving behind, the only one he would call for in his weakest moments. Mother, _Mother..._  
“You are my son, and that is the name I gave you. I won’t use another one.” Stubborn to the last, he thinks, standing in front of her now. He towers over her, but she is still just as strong and imposing as he remembers. Still, she looks into his eyes and she sees what his father saw, despite his efforts. The face of her son.  
“We came here to give you information,” He gets out, and Leia takes a breath, looking surprised.   
“Information?”   
“Information to help you. To help the Resistance.” He sounds rushed. Any longer, and he will find himself in a place he cannot face, not yet, not now, not without Rey. He feels as if he cannot meet her eyes, but doesn't know where else to focus--and so his gaze is nearly erratic, flicking everywhere, trying not to linger too long on the new lines on his mother's face, the sadness in her eyes, the downturn of her lips. He put them there, he knows, he knows, and he can never take them back, can never atone for them, can never be forgiven. His mother...he has taken so, so much from her.  
He still doesn’t know how to feel about this situation in particular, forcing himself to focus on the here and now, but then...something in him wasn’t convinced they would get this far in the first place. His mother looks confused, concerned.   
“Ben, are you--are you coming back, are you coming ho--” Her voice is imploring daring to hope before he cuts her off.  
“--No.” She goes still, and he almost regrets the word. “No, we can’t. We still have more to do.”   
“'We'...You and Rey.” Her voice is so soft, and there is recognition in her eyes. “When Luke told me, I knew...I knew you wouldn’t--”   
“I would never hurt her.” He finishes for her, swallowing. “I would _never_ hurt her, I won’t let her be hurt, either. But we--we have to finish this. We’re the only ones who can do this.”   
“Do _what?_ Ben, tell me what’s going on, tell me what’s happening.” She wants to understand and yet...much longer and she will regret, much longer and she will not be able to face what must follow this, what must take place here now that she knows they have come.  
“I can’t. I can’t do that; please listen, we can’t stay here long.”   
“...All right. Tell me what you can, Ben. Please.”

 

Out in the sea of people, Rey scans the rooms while keeping a monitor on Kylo Ren and his mother, trying not to stray very far. Something isn’t right, she senses something, and if it is what she thinks, then they need to leave. But...she has no proof, and he still needs more time to talk to the General.

So Rey wanders around the room, offering distracted smiles here and there and sampling foods she passes within reach, ducking past dancing couples and chatting bystanders. She can feel Kylo Ren nearby, can feel his heartbeat, feel what he feels, and she wishes she could be closer but this is important, she has to focus, this is for a greater good. She turns to glance back towards the antechamber mother and son are in, but she’s very abruptly surprised by a gloved hand on her shoulder, and then another on her opposite arm, steering her further into the crowd. Her breath hitches and she goes cold, fear rising up in her gut.  
Standing taller than her with a frigid sort of rigidity about him is a man in the most crisp uniform she thinks she’s ever seen. The metal detail gleams in the light, the black is so dark it seems velvety. He looks perfectly coiffed and perfectly dressed, but this man is _cold_ . Rey feels it in his hands, in the Force surrounding him--this is not a man she wants anything to do with, but she knows him all the same. She knows his cold eyes and his fiery hair from Kylo Ren’s memories, looking through his eyes. But how he knows her...she isn’t sure she wants to know.   
“I didn’t expect to find a scavenger mingling among the rich--but then, you don’t look much like a sand rat anymore,” His voice makes a little shiver start in her spine. She thinks he might drag her out, but then he stops, and with little effort takes her hand and her waist, and leads her into a dance. Rey has no idea what this is, how to dance, why he is here, but none of it can mean anything good.

“Let go of me.” She keeps her voice low, her eyes on his. He looks almost amused, but Rey looks furious.  
“Oh I will, but for now I think you and I will talk.” Rey’s eyes narrow up at him as they turn and she tries to keep up with his steps. He is uncomfortably close, their bodies pressed together so that with just a slight lean of his head he can speak into her ear. “You look much different, now,” He muses, and Rey’s lips form a line. “Much different than the dirty creature Ren brought back with him. He seems to have done wonders on you--or, well, I’m sure part of him has, at the very least--” Rey starts to wrench herself free, but he holds tight. “Ah-ah, wouldn’t want to cause a scene. I’m sure Ren wants a bit more time with dear mommy, and you don’t need to make such a ruckus out here…” Rey grits her teeth, though she’s still fighting to try and keep her distance from him.   
  
The music changes. She does not know the steps, does not like how unnatural and stiff and _wrong_ this feels. His leather gloves are cool on her skin and firm on the small of her back, far too intimate a touch for her liking from someone like him, from anyone she does not know, does not feel comfort with. She wants to get away, wants to duck out of his grasp and run for Kylo Ren, but he needs time, and as grating as it is, she can’t cause a scene here, not yet, at least.   
“You do clean up rather nicely. With a little training you might even pass as a lady.” His tone is judgemental and patronizing, and Rey scowls at him.

“What do you want, General Hux?”  
  
“So you do know who I am. I'm not surprised, Ren's doing, I'm sure." He lets out the smallest exhale through his nose, and it's the closest to a laugh she thinks this man has ever gotten. "It’s not what _I_ want. You see, _I_ am much more skilled at discerning between what I want and what my orders are, much more so than your darling defector.” He looks rather irritated, smirking through it at this, “Either one of them, as it were.” Rey has to fight with herself to keep her voice down.   
“Then what is it you’re here for?”

He studies her face for a moment, and then a moment longer. _Too long,_ she thinks, watching the smile on his face fading.  
“You, _girl_. You, and that idiot Ren.” Rey swallows, feels a cold stone in her belly. “Supreme Leader Snoke has deemed Ren unfit to carry out this objective anymore. You, and he, by extension, are now my problem.” Rey sneers at him.  
“Your _problem_ \--as if I care what--” Hux leans in again, mouth next to her ear, arm tightening around her waist.  
“You’ll find I’m much less easily swayed than Ren, my dear. If you have any ounce of sense in that head of yours you’ll convince him to come quietly when this is done.” Rey bares her teeth.  
“And why would I do that?” Hux’s thin lips curl into a smile, and his eyes are enough to chill her to the bone.  
“You mean you haven’t noticed?” His fingers press into her hip through her gown too-hard and Rey’s breath catches in her throat at how close his face is suddenly. Rey’s eyes widen at his words, spoken with a laugh on his tongue,   
“You’re surrounded either way.”

 

Leia looks so tired as she rests a hand on her son’s arm when all is said and done. He’s given her more information than she expected--she didn’t think this would happen, didn’t think it would go like this, and she feels so much uncertainty now.  
“Ben--Ben please, come back with me, come home--we can protect you, and Rey too--”   
“I can’t. We can’t--there’s more at stake than you understand, and we…” He swallows, placing a hand over his mother’s. “We have more to do. Rey and I...we aren’t done yet. We can’t go back, not now.” Leia’s eyes search his face, and her fingers press into his arm some.   
“Ben, what…”

Rey comes skidding into the doorway just then, reaching her hand out to Kylo Ren, fear on her face.  
“We have to leave. We have to leave, now!”

Leia’s eyes are wide as her son takes a step back, looking from Rey to his mother and back.  
“What?” Rey casts a wary look at General Organa.   
“Kylo hurry, we have to leave, we knew something wasn’t right, this was a mistake--” Kylo’s brow knits and Leia shuts her eyes as her son backs away from her.   
“What...what is going on?” Rey takes a few steps closer, imploring him to come to her.   
“We’re surrounded. They’re here--the Resistance, the Order--” Leia’s eyes snap open again and she turns to look at Rey, stunned.   
“What--”   
“They’re here for us. This was just one huge fucking trap and we walked right into it!” Kylo turns on his mother again, fury, betrayal in his eyes.   
“You knew about this--”   
“Ben, we had no choice--”   
“Don’t call me that!” His voice is thunderous, and Rey can feel stares, can feel the gathering converging on them.   
“You have to understand, they were attacking bases they shouldn’t have known about, you were with Rey, we didn’t know--” Rey looks gutted.   
“You thought--you thought I--”   
“Rey never betrayed any of you!” Kylo roars, advancing a step on Leia. “The only ones who’ve betrayed anyone are you, you and Skywalker!” Rey is inching closer, trying to take his arm, trying to get them out.

“Kylo please, Kylo we have to leave, we have to get out now--” They really are surrounded, now. Gala guests have descended on the small room to watch the altercation, but then there behind Rey is General Hux himself, watching them with amusement written on his pale face.  
“You should have just listened to the girl.”

 

There are screams from the outer room. Stormtroopers have begun filing in, blasters raised, Rey and Kylo can feel them steadily moving closer. Kylo Ren glares at Hux with more rage in his eyes than Rey has ever seen--or so she thinks. There is a flicker, and she knows what is coming, sees the yellow bleeding through, and tries to reach out again.  
“Kylo, please--” He’s starting to cross the small room towards Hux, but blasterfire distracts him, distracts them both.

Almost immediately, Rey and Kylo Ren are armed again, sabers in hand, both of them side-by-side to face the doorways. Leia backs up against the opposite wall, looking tortured over this--she hadn’t seen this outcome, she hadn’t expected this at all. Hux is distracted now as well, shouting orders to the troopers engaging with Resistance members that have begun flooding in to counterfire.  
“This was a mistake, I was such a fucking idiot--I made us walk right into this--” Rey is trying to breathe, and Kylo Ren swallows, shaking his head, his eyes narrowed.   
“This isn’t your fault.” He shifts a bit to stand more in front of her, and Rey tries to move back again, but he holds an arm out to stop her. “I’m going to make them pay for this. All of them--”   
“Kylo no, we need to just leave, we need to find a way out.”   
“You find us a way out. I’ll follow you.” He starts to head towards the doorway after Hux, but Rey grabs his arm, and he turns to face her.   
“You are leaving with me, Kylo Ren,” She says, and grips his arm tight. “I’ll find a way out, and you’re following me.” _Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, and don’t do anything stupid, I’m not leaving without you._   
He nods, taking her hand for a moment and squeezing it gently. She sees him, her Kylo Ren, her Ben, in his eyes.   
“I’m leaving with you, Rey. Go find a way out.”

He turns to face the oncoming forces, and Rey rushes out the opposite doorway, using her lightsaber to slash off the skirt of her gown so she can run. She dodges blaster shots and cuts down Stormtroopers rushing her, hurrying to find a way they can escape.The room is filled with smoke and bodies, senators trying to escape themselves, and in the chaos she sees a small group of Resistance soldiers hurriedly getting the General through the fight. Kicking her shoes off, she dashes after them, knowing this must be the way.

Kylo Ren slashes wildly at Stormtroopers and Resistance soldiers alike--he is a whirlwind of fury and power, slamming men into walls and through windows, deflecting blaster shots left and right. Hux is already being escorted somewhere safe to await the outcome of this, watching this localized battle play out. The First Order General is watching now from a higher vantage point, a balcony overlooking the main floor of the room, and as invested in watching Kylo Ren as he is, he notices the girl out of the corner of his eye suddenly as she makes a mad dash to follow General Organa, likely in hopes of using her escape route for she and Ren.

It isn’t to be had, however. Rey is cut off by Resistance fighters, blasters aimed at the girl as she holds her saber up in defense. She’s outnumbered here, Stormtroopers at her back, Resistance soldiers in front--Hux mutters into a comm device for their men to focus on her, let the Resistance fall back. The girl and Ren are what they’re here for.  
Before anyone can stop it, however, a trooper rushes Rey from behind and catches her _hard_ in the side with an electro-baton.  


Rey _screams_ , and the entire room seems to go silent as the girl nearly goes to her knees. Immediately, everything shifts.

  
Kylo Ren stops everything. The men around him are thrown back like ragdolls, and he rushes for Rey with speed he didn’t know he had in him. The Stormtroopers barely have time to react before he’s slashing at all of them, slashing _through_ them, to get to her, to get to--   
“ _Rey!_ ” He’s shouting for her and Rey sees him coming for her out of the smoke, his burning blade slicing through anything in its path. She regains her footing, turning to face him for a hurried moment,   
“Kylo! Run, just run!” She knows the Resistance is right there, ready to take them both down, but he won’t stop, not now.

He storms past her, towards the Resistance members, and Rey knows this will end with no survivors. She reaches to grab his hand, but when her fingers brush him he turns just long enough for one soldier to get plucky and shoot him in the shoulder. He rounds on the men, the pain excruciating, but…  
Rey is breathing hard. The pain is circulating through both of them, easing itself some that way, but another shot is fired and Kylo Ren is slowed down now. Rey whips around to face the soldiers, and when she sees Kylo go to his knees, more blasters pointed at him, something in her seems to snap.

The air goes strangely thick, charged with energy, all of it radiating from Rey. The smoke even begins swirling up and away from her, and she faces the soldiers now with rage on her face. They hurt him, they’d keep shooting until he was dead, and they’d shoot her down with him.  
She wasn’t going to let them.

Her body feels almost like it’s moving on its own as she advances on them, staring them down all the while as if daring them to fire. One does, and then another, and she flicks their shots right back at them, raising a hand to send a punishing wave of the Force at a man who tries to rush at her. He flies backwards into a stone wall with a sickening crunch, and Rey continues, walking past Kylo Ren, raising her lightsaber at the men, who have begun to retreat.

They look at her with fear in their eyes, and for a moment it _feeds_ her, builds the Force inside of her, makes smoke and dust and debris swirl up around her legs like a slow cyclone. She wants to stop them, wants to protect Kylo Ren, wants to make sure they can’t hurt him again, or her, wants to hurt _them_ for it.   
For the first time, Rey feels... _possessive._ She feels defensive over him, over her companion, her friend, her…   
_Let them be afraid, they’ve turned on me, they turned on him, we only wanted to help them, and this is how they repay us--!_

“Rey--!”

She whips around, suddenly back to herself, back to her senses. Kylo Ren is being subdued by a new squadron of Stormtroopers, Hux standing now between she and him.  
“You could have stopped this all from happening, scavenger,” He tuts at her, and Kylo meets her gaze, his saber out of his grasp now.   
“Rey, you have to get out--Rey, _go!!”_ But she’s stunned by all of this, still shell-shocked that this has all happened so suddenly, and concern and fear for him washes over her far too late.

She’s shot with a stun bolt in the back, and the world goes brilliantly bright for a moment and then dims as she falls. Her vision swims, and she fights to get the words out, tries to reach one more time, weak fingers trying to find him, fighting against the stiffening jolt coursing through her muscles. She wants to get to him, has to get to him, can’t lose him, feels the bond shiver and shudder and _fade_ .   
“Ky--Kylo…”

His face is the last thing she sees before everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
> 
>  
> 
> stay tuned, folks.


	28. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Separation.  
> Lessons. Escapism. Ghosts.

Rey has been in this cell for two weeks.

There was no medbay, there was no visit to her room. Rey was brought to the base, brought before General Organa and the Resistance Leaders--and she had to be the General, just then. Rey understands this, even if it stings her, but likewise...there is part of her that blames the older woman for all of this. Irrational and angry and hurt, she thinks of how it felt to see the Resistance soldiers rushing in on them and her eyes are hard as the leaders address her.  
And now here she sits.

She has been termed a traitor and a liability to the Resistance. General Organa was resigned, regretful, but firm--the Resistance knows who Kylo Ren is, and after the work she has done to assert her firm stance against the First Order, against the Darkness, she cannot afford to stumble here. Whether he is her son or not, he is an enemy of the galaxy, an enemy of the Resistance, and because she has been an accomplice and it is assumed she has been leaking their secrets to him, they come to a quick decision: Rey is a war criminal.

 

There are no visitors. Finn and Poe and Jessika and Rose have been barred from seeing her, and Rey is sure they would not want to even if they could. Luke has visited once, but Rey refuses to speak to him. She hasn’t said a word in her own defense--even the General’s eyes seemed to plead with her to say something, say anything, but Rey is now as she was then: silent, and defiant. She has no weapons, and there are cuffs on her wrists  if she does manage to escape. Leia managed that much, just short of putting her in chains. She insists she trusts Rey, but Rey isn’t sure, now, if she returns the sentiment.  
  
There is a stone ledge built into the cell as a bed, but Rey sits on the floor regardless, curled up in the furthest corner from the entrance. She has nothing in this cell--they give her food she can eat with her hands, and a guard watches her during meals. Rey eats perhaps once every few days, and only one bite of the vitagen they give her and a mouthful of water. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes--not day, not night, she has lost track of time entirely--she thinks of Varykino. She thinks of the sunlight through the silk curtains, the mornings on the balconies overlooking the lakes glittering in the distance. She thinks of the soft sheets, the smooth stone of the bedroom. Their bedroom. It feels like another lifetime.

She feels more alone than she has in months. Kylo Ren is _gone_ \--she cannot even sense him in the Force, and it makes her gut ache, makes her feel hollowed out. Something has happened, she senses it, but there is nothing: no sound, no feeling, no energy.  
She meditates in the bond, sitting in a sea of stars and silence, waiting for him, for anything, but nothing comes.  
Day and night after day and night, she sits and waits, reaches, tries to find him, and there is nothing. Just the echoing silence of space and the gentle current of the living Force that she opens herself up to. She is alone, and empty, and can’t feel the pulse of his energy, the beat of his heart from far away, the pull of his consciousness on her own. She has nothing here, no one to speak to, no one to be with her--and she feels sickened by this kind of loneliness. She has known intimate company now, has not truly been alone in months, and now she craves contact, she craves _him_. Her nails bite into the skin of her palms and she feels hollow and anxious, needing to know he is alive, needing to know he is still there, he is still waiting on the other side of the bond, needing his energy and his touch and his presence.

Rey is afraid.

 

Nearing the fourteenth day of her imprisonment, she isn’t given food. She knows when to expect the guards, and wonders why none have come. Are they finally leaving her to starve? Her eyes flick to the door, but nothing more. Have the guards left? They wouldn’t leave her unattended like that, she muses bitterly to herself, she’s too dangerous to be left unmonitored. She doesn’t intend to live out the remainder of her days in this hole, but likewise she doesn’t know what to do right now. If she escapes, where does she go? She isn’t stupid enough to think she can go and find Kylo by herself--but something is wrong, he wouldn’t leave like this, she knows he wouldn’t, not like this. She _knows_.

Her answer comes a moment later when the viewport on the door is slammed open and her eyes flick back to the wall in front of herself. The soldier there glares at her, she can feel his eyes, and feel the burning anger and deep sorrow in him. Whatever has happened, he knows she did nothing, but he blames her--Rey knows, she senses all of it.  
“It was all destroyed. Everything--my family’s home, our town, everything! My brothers were executed in front of their children, do you hear me?! You were supposed to help us, you were supposed to help fight them! Instead you were selling us all out to that monster! You can starve in here for all I care, _traitor_!”  
The viewport slams shut again and Rey can hear the guard let out a strangled sob. Her body shakes, and she swallows, closing her eyes.  
_You were supposed to help us, you were supposed to help fight them..._

Outside of the detention block, the Resistance has been busy scattering to counter numerous attacks by the First Order. General Organa is frustrated and concerned about this--these attacks are not random, and they are spread out across the galaxy in such a way that suggests the Order is drawing them out. She doesn’t like this, not one bit; they won’t abandon the base but their outposts can’t handle all of this on their own. The home base squadrons have been sent out as much as they can sacrifice, but…

Rey can sense such disturbance in the Force it makes her stomach lurch and she feels ill. Something terrible is happening, so many people are suffering, and she can feel it, feel the Force trembling around her, volatile in all of the sorrow and fear and hurt being released into it from all over the galaxy. She is trapped in a cell, and she is alone. All she can do from here is suffer in solitary silence, and it makes her feel sick now with anger and _helplessness_. She tries to meditate, but she only feels the deep emptiness that her half of the cut-off bond offers, and she screams, howls, into the desolate quiet, her Force signature flaring wildly in frustration and desperation, the days of pent-up fear and anxiety and sorrow and loneliness pouring out of her in one massive corona.

All at once, things shift.

Voices echo around her, ancient and familiar and out of time.

_Millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror......Anger leads to hate...hate leads to suffering…...Balance to the Force…_

_...I sense much fear in you._

Rey shrieks again, frustrated and furious. _Give me answers!_ She screams into the void of the Force, _This is too much, I can’t do this alone! Please help me--all you ever give me is glimpses and hints, I don’t know what to do! Help me, help me! I’m alone now, I’m supposed to help all of these people and I can’t, I can’t, I don’t know what to do!_

That voice. Soft, and gently encouraging.

_Trust in the Force, Rey. It will show you the way._

Rey takes her head in her hands, angry, hot tears stinging her eyes. _The Force hasn’t brought me anything but pain! I hate this, I hate this! The only thing the Force’s given me has just been taken away again! I don’t want this, I never wanted anything to do with this! I just wanted--I just wanted..._

There is a hand on her hair, suddenly. She freezes, feeling it resting there lightly--like the first touches she exchanged with Kylo Ren, a ghost of a touch, the vague impression of presence. Slowly, she lowers her hands and looks up.

A man stands before her, a man in robes surrounded by a soft blue glow. He is dead, Rey realizes; he is standing with her and speaking to her through the Force. She stares, stunned, but he only offers her a sad, half-smile. His eyes are kind and have seen far too much, but still crinkle at the corners as he looks down at her. There is a soft beard on his face, and his hair is streaked with gray, but he is handsome and gives off an air of wisdom that comes with much experience and age. Rey knows him instantly, somehow.  
_You..._  
_  
_ _Hello, Rey._

Rey swallows, staring up at him in awed silence.  
_I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to finally meet you. I’ve wanted to, of course--the timing was just never quite right. The Force works in very strange ways sometimes, doesn’t it?_ Rey wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and her gaze is confused and upset.  
_But you--but why me? Why now??_ She feels his hand stroke over her hair gently and he sighs sadly.  
_You know who I am, Rey. And you know why I am here, why you have been shown so much. You are meant for greatness, Rey--_  
_Greatness!_ She forcefully slams her arms onto her legs in her sitting position, turning to look at him in incredulous anger. _Greatness! I don’t_ want _greatness, I never wanted greatness! I just--_ The fury in her expression begins to waver, her voice shudders. _All I ever wanted was my_ **_family_ ** _!_ He withdraws his hand, tucking it into his sleeves and facing the great expanse of the Force before the both of them. His voice is sad, eons and eons old.  
_I know, Rey. I have been watching you for such a long time, my girl--I am sorry._

Rey takes her face in her hands and breathes deep, trying to stop the tears from coming. She is overwhelmed, alone, and afraid, and there is nothing she can do about it.  
_What am I supposed to do?_ She whimpers from behind her hands, fingers curling into her hairline. _Just tell me what to do, please…_  
_I can’t do that, Rey._ She lets out a quiet sob, folding over on herself.  
_Why not?! I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do--_ She gasps for breath, hands sliding up to curl into fistfuls of her hair in frustration. _They’re counting on me. The Resistance was counting on me, they thought I was some ‘savior’--they didn’t trust me, none of them, they’ve been treating me like I’m_ dangerous _, and I…They want me to save them, they want me to just defeat the First Order and destroy the darkness, and I...I..._ _  
_ _What is it_ you _want, Rey?_

His voice is so soft, and so sincere. He is facing her when she looks up at him again, and she swallows, feeling her lip trembling.  
_I want--I want…_ What does she want? She wanted family, food, shelter, safety, for such a long time, and now… Her throat feels tight. _I want to save him. I want to save Kylo--I...I need to help him._ The old master gives a slow nod.  
_I think you are the only one who can._

Rey studies him for a long moment.  
_You tried before. You tried--_  
_\--And I failed. There was much I did not understand, then. Much I still have yet to learn. I thought I failed Luke, as well,_ He heaves a small sigh, nodding to himself, _But I was surprised. And in the end, he did what I could not._ Rey’s voice is quiet, tremulous.  
_Anakin Skywalker…_ He nods.  
_Your Ben’s grandfather._

Rey is quiet now, looking at her knees, thinking on this.  
_It was still too late, wasn’t it. Vader died, and now…_  
_Now, this ‘First Order’ has risen from the rubble of the Empire. The Dark Side of the Force lies in wait, no matter how long it takes. Ben Solo was not the first to fall prey to it._ Rey frowns.  
_But there is still Light in him. There is still good--I know it. I’ve felt it, I’ve_ seen _it!_ He nods.  
_Then you need to help bring it forth in him. You can, can’t you. You know that you can, you’ve done it before._ There is the smallest smile on his face, and Rey feels strangely encouraged by this.  
_Yeah...yeah, I have._ She thinks of the calm she has felt in him, the happiness she has felt in him. She knows she can do that again. Her companion nods at her in acceptance.  
_You know that you can help him. You know that you can save him._ Rey nods, and the man offers his hand to her. _The time is coming, Rey. You have to be ready._ She lets him help her to her feet, gazing at him questioningly, but as she thinks, senses, she understands. The time is coming. Their time is coming.  
_I’ll do whatever it takes._  
Obi-Wan Kenobi nods, smiling at her.  
_Oh, I know you will._

 

In a far-flung reach of the galaxy, Kylo Ren is lying on a cold metal floor, breath still somehow finding its way to his lungs.

His eyes are wide and hazy and staring into nothing, and his jaw is slightly slack--otherwise he is a crumpled mass of dark fabric and mangled limbs. His body aches, muscles strained to near breaking point, bones popping and creaking with even the slightest movement.

Snoke never had taken kindly to failure.  
Kylo Ren was his prodigy, his weapon, his means to completing the set that the universe had presented him with: the two most powerful Force-users the galaxy has ever seen--and he had failed. He had _betrayed_ them, he had _disobeyed._  
He hadn’t needed to be conscious en route to his old master; he knew what was coming. His reprimands before had been just a taste of what this would be, but Rey, _Rey_ …

Recalling the way he’d gotten here made his body jolt at the memory of why he’d done what he had, why he’d done anything, everything--Rey-- _Rey--_  
It is excruciating to move, however, and the muscle spasms that rack his form at the reminder of her set off every pain receptor in his body. Kylo Ren grits his teeth and hisses, roars, against the back of them. Keep her cut off to keep her safe. Keep her out to keep her safe. She has to be safe, at least he didn’t fail her at least he didn’t bring her here at least Snoke will never have her will never touch her will never hurt her--

Footsteps. The sound of dragging fabric. Snoke approaching.

Kylo goes still again. The old creature stands over him in ominous silence before speaking.  
“Such a disappointment.” He slowly makes his way around Kylo Ren’s limp form, not bothering to look down at his apprentice. “And yet still alive.” There is another moment of silence as Snoke continues on his path to his throne, cold and sharp, just yards away. Kylo Ren takes in a painful breath and tries to swallow even the saliva pooling in his mouth, but the effort is too much. Snoke seats himself, regards the body on the floor with an impassive gaze. “The Resistance has the girl,” He rumbles out, and Kylo Ren feels his entire body go alight with fear and pain. Part of this is Snoke’s doing, but the other...the other of it is his own reaction. _Rey Rey Rey Rey keep her safe keep her safe keep her out to keep her safe_

The old creature on his throne exhales quietly, clearly unimpressed with the silence.  
“The Resistance has the girl,” He repeats, “She’s been imprisoned on their base.”

The universe tilts, goes silent and still.

His veins writhe in his skin, his muscles protest against the pain, the rage and desolation in him trying to beat its way to the surface. His Rey, a prisoner, being held somewhere in a cell, jailed by the people she called friends--! His body flinches and convulses at the sudden mixture of emotions and urges to move. No, no, he has to help her, has to get to her, can’t leave her this way--  
Snoke’s gravelly, unsettling chuckle stops him cold.  
“It pains you, doesn’t it. To know she is being _tormented_ this way. Alone in a cell, locked away…” He trails off, and the amusement in his tone is sadistic, “...All because of her compassion, her _feelings_ for _you_ .” Kylo flinches and feels his eyes flood, gasping against the floor. All his fault, she was suffering because of him, she was alone because of him. Snoke leans forward on his elbows, gazing down at his apprentice, and his tone is a cruel mimicry of sympathetic. “And to think, all you had to do was obey me--bring her here, bring her to me--” He waves a hand out, “And the two of you could have been together.” He settles back again and Kylo feels sick. “But here we sit, Kylo Ren, and now the _both_ of you suffer for your weakness.”

Something hot and wet trickles down over the bridge of Kylo Ren’s nose, dampens his cheeks and spreads over the floor under him. He shuts his eyes as tightly as he can manage to stop it. Snoke sighs heavily, folding his hands.  
“Your incompetence has cost me a great deal of time, and now it is costing General Hux a great deal of inconvenience. I imagine, however,” the shriveled creature drawls, “that his results will be more promising. He has already at least delivered you back to me. I am sure the girl will not be far behind.” He leans forward again, and now his tone is hushed and icy, “But now your reunion will not be had.” Kylo shudders, and Snoke slowly sits back, brow knit over beady eyes. “My mercy is coming to an end, boy. The girl will be delivered here, and I will have my use of her, and you will be permitted as little contact with her as possible.” _And then?_ Kylo is afraid to even think the question. Snoke sounds bored, answering him all the same. “And then she will be discarded. She is clearly a threat to order, and a distraction.” Kylo Ren’s body trembles, out of fear or anger he isn’t sure. A ghost of a smirk crosses Snoke’s face now and Kylo Ren can hear the clicking of boots approaching. “Or perhaps, after proper modification, she might make a suitable gift for the General.”

Rage enough to make his entire body convulse spikes in Kylo Ren, but another voice makes him go still again.  
“I don’t require any such compensation, Supreme Leader,” Hux’s clipped tone, though there is the very distinct hint of smugness in his voice here. “However I will respect your judgements, as ever.” He bows briefly and then straightens again. “The Resistance is stretching itself thin to counterattack at each point. Soon their home base will be defenseless, and we will destroy the roots of their pervasive threat.” Snoke makes a pleased sound, settling back in his seat.  
“Good...very good, General...Your results have continued to impress. Carry out this plan, and bring me the girl.”

Hux bows, exits. Kylo Ren lies in silence, clinging to consciousness, mind spiraling trying to think of what to do, anything to do, any way to save Rey. Snoke lets out a breath, and sounds pleased.  
“You feel it, Kylo Ren. We are closer to having full control of the galaxy.” Kylo takes a shuddering breath, and yes, he feels it. It creeps over him like a cold shroud. “Yes...once more, Darkness rises.”

 

“...And Light to meet it,” he responds, and shakes his head gently. “But Light isn’t meant to overtake it. I never understood that.” Rey nods, seated across from him in meditation.  
“There’s a balance--there has to be. But...something’s wrong.” Her brow furrows slightly, and her companion nods.  
“The Light is being smothered. Darkness is falling, and the equilibrium is crumbling.” Rey shakes her head.  
“But why? The Jedi were guardians, they were respected warriors--”  
“--and feared ones. The Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers, our duty was to maintain order, and somewhere...somewhere, we lost our way. In our effort to uphold the old ways, something shifted. The Light Side of the Force took many to extremes, just as the Dark Side did for others. The old Masters were so determined to keep any potentially dark knowledge away from new generations that slowly it was all but forgotten to the Jedi Order and their students. It became something curious and tempting when Force-users discovered it, instead of a tool of learning.” Rey looks at him curiously.  
“What do you mean?”

“In ancient times, there are said to be Force-users who could even manipulate the Force into regenerating limbs, preserving life--even _creating_ it. It was believed that Anakin Skywalker himself came into being because of this power, but by the time he was born...if such a skill still existed, it was lost to us. Darth Sidious manipulated Anakin Skywalker into becoming his student and committing atrocities in order to learn this power, but it was a lie." He sighs, shaking his head, "To this day, it is unknown if he could even use such an ability to begin with.”  
“Anakin did it in order to save his wife. In order to save Padmé,” Rey supplies, remembering everything she’s seen and been taught. “You knew her, you know why he was so afraid…” Obi-Wan nods, his eyes sad and tired.  
“I did. But Rey...what he saw was a vision of what could become of her, nothing more. The future is never certain, in visions, in life. The Force is always moving, and life is always changing. When you were a child, what did you see in your future? What did you dream?”

Rey stops. Thinks.

“I saw...I saw a family. I saw _my_ family, coming back for me.” Her voice is heavy, and she takes a breath, swallowing. Remembering.  
“I saw...nightmares. A man in black...a red sword. A mask.” She shuts her eyes. “I saw Kylo Ren. I never knew it was him.” Her teacher nods, his voice soft.  
“Now it _is_ the future, compared to those days. Were your visions, your dreams, correct?” Rey is silent for a moment.  
“...No. They weren’t. Just...sort of approximations.” She looks up at him, her eyes curious. “That’s what it was. He saw something that _might_ happen, or some version of what would happen.” Obi-Wan nods.  
“That is exactly what he saw. But he was so fearful for her that it became the only truth for him, and it drove him to madness.”  
“He loved her so much…” He takes a long, quiet breath.  
“He did, but _that_ …” Rey swallows a little, thinking.

“That was...sort of like obsession, wasn’t it? He loved her, but he was afraid. Too afraid. He didn’t trust himself, or her. He just wanted her alive, no matter what.” Slowly, he nods.  
“Or that his friends, her friends, would help them if the need arose. He focused on the fear of losing her and the anguish that would follow instead of the joy of being with her.”

Rey feels something tingling in her bones, something strange that she can’t place. Her mouth goes a little dry, and she tries to swallow, licking her lips and taking a deep breath.  
“But that’s not...that’s not...healthy. If you love someone, you...you trust them. You trust that they love you.”  
“He was loved by many. And so was she.”  
“He could have saved her by trusting her, by trusting himself. If he had believed that they were only dreams, and that things would be all right, she might have survived. If he’d trusted his own power.”  
“It is likely she would have, yes.”

Rey shakes her head some, still looking thoughtful.  
“But that power--the power to...to create life. The Jedi thought that was too dangerous?”  
“The Jedi feared such unlimited power. To create life was a power that only the Force should yield. When one began to manipulate something like that, it was unnatural, not power for a mortal creature to control.” Rey takes a breath, thinking on this.  
“Sometimes...sometimes when I’m meditating, or just...you know, just practicing--if I open myself a little more, it feels like my body just...falls away. Like I’m just part of the Force, and I can feel myself directing it.” He nods some, studying her as she speaks.  
“What do you direct it to do?”  
“All sorts of things. Make wind blow. Or move water, or...jump a little higher. Run a little faster.”  
“Move plants, and crack rocks,” he continues for her, knowingly. Rey nods.  
“Yeah. And…”  
“And to heal yourself, and Kylo Ren.” Rey takes a breath, nodding.  
“Yes. But it’s...when we’re together, when we’re using the bond, it’s like the energy just cycles, back and forth, and feeds off of our power and gets stronger. Like an engine that we can create, sort of. We just tell it what to do.”  
“Such as healing yourselves.” She nods.  
“Or seeing things, or places we’ve been. Or finding people we know.” He nods.  
“You two have power that would have terrified the Jedi Order. Anakin Skywalker was like you, in that way, but together...your powers are so much greater than his.”

 

Rey’s form with a lightsaber improves. She has none in this cell, but in the metaphysical Force, she can mime one to practice. In the dark of her confinement, Rey looks meditative and quiet, but in her meditation she trains, harder as the hours pass. She feels it coming: something big, something ominous, the _Darkness_ . Snoke is still after her, and now, now she knows he has Kylo Ren.  
“I’m going to save him,” Rey tells Obi-Wan as they practice with false blades, “I know I can.”  
He swings at her. “Do you trust him?”  
She blocks him. “I trust him.”  
He swings again. “Do you fear the Dark?”  
She blocks, once again. “I am not afraid.”  
He advances on her, testing her guard. “Why aren’t you afraid?”  
Rey meets him, blow for blow. “The Light and the Dark are both inside me. I am not afraid. There has to be balance. I can create the balance.”  
He brings his blade down hard, an overhead strike. “Do you trust yourself?”  
She stands her ground, stops his blade with the Force alone, open palm held over her head. Her eyes meet his and she is confident, she is strong.  “I trust my power.”

 

She questions how they can do what has to be done.  
“It’s Snoke. I know it is, the center of all of this. He’s..he’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” Obi-Wan nods.  
“His presence in the Force is strong, and sinister.” She takes a breath.  
“He isn’t the first creature like this.” He shakes his head.  
“No, he is not. The power of Darth Sidious, the ‘Emperor’ echoes in him--and the dark chasm of many others before him. He draws his power from the darkest abyss of strength: the Sith Lords that came before him.” Rey looks puzzled.  
“But what about the Jedi? How am I talking to you?”  
“The Jedi do not simply become one consciousness. We become part of the Force, but we are...well, ourselves, still. It is a strange life after life,” he chuckles. Rey blinks.  
“But the Sith just...lump together?”  
“Their anger and dark passion melds their consciousnesses together in death. They become a singular power in the Force, ready to feed on and then assimilate another and another after them.” Rey frowns.  
“So then we kill Snoke, and he just...feeds into that further. It doesn’t end.” Silence for a moment.  
“...Not necessarily.”

 

The day arrives.  
The First Order is launching an attack on D’Qar--The Resistance has anticipated this, but their firepower is not enough, not with their fleet spread so thinly across the galaxy already. A blockade is protecting the base, but it is too small, too weak.

Kylo Ren is at the nav system of his command shuttle.  
Weeks at the hands of Snoke have rendered him something strange and cold. He is less conscious and more mobile shell, now, but he is under control.

At least, for the most part.

Snoke nearly shattered his consciousness entirely. Kylo Ren was a mask of a persona, but even that barely held up, until finally a thought came. An idea.  
Kylo Ren was rebuilt. Weakness was eradicated. Snoke’s final seal on this new apprentice of his was the last of it: the Knights of Ren had been disciples of the weak boy he had destroyed. They had to be eliminated. When the time came, there would be new members.  
Snoke was appeased. Kylo Ren was his weapon once more, and while General Hux would be overseeing the retrieval of the Girl, Ren would be a useful instrument again.

Now, viewing the projected viewpoint inside the ship, D’Qar looms into view.  
There is little left on the surface of the Kylo Ren that Rey ran away with. Another layer to protect something far beneath, this time the mask with pale skin and yellow eyes. Something manic and dark, with a singular focus here as he made straight for the Base on the planet below.  
_Rey Rey Rey Rey Rey…_

The Resistance’s blockade is crumbling. Their defense is simply not strong enough; ships are disappearing around his shuttle left and right. They continue their path, breaking D’Qar’s atmosphere. He knows she is here. He knows without opening the bond--she is here, Rey is here.

The shuttle lands, flanked by TIE Fighters, just outside the base. Ground troops are already storming the compound, drawing the rebels out with blaster shots and fire. Smoke fills the air, people scramble, ships take off. Kylo Ren disembarks with a squadron of Stormtroopers and Captain Phasma, and it feels just as it always did. Phasma shouts commands and the troopers surge ahead, and Kylo Ren hangs back briefly, feeling for his target, the only thing he has come to this planet for.

 

In her cell, Rey feels them coming.

She can hear the panic outside, if she focuses. Her guard was changed more than a week ago, if her new meals are any way of gauging time, but in the detention block she’s held in there is no one. She senses everyone above ground, rushing around and trying to evacuate what they can as the blockade staves off the Star Destroyers as long as it can. She extends her reach, sensing around the planet, feeling for what is going on. General Organa has been taken aboard a shuttle to oversee the defense. Poe is commanding in the hangar. Jessika is already in her X-Wing. Finn was still away from the base with Rose--Rey has no idea where they are, but she hopes beyond hope that they are safe. Her friends are leading, doing what they can to help, and Rey feels frustration all over again.  
“They need me. They need my help.” She opens her eyes, and her teacher stands, luminous, in her dark cell.  
“Patience, Rey. You feel it coming. Be ready for it. Steady your heart.” Rey takes a breath, gets up, paces.  
“I don’t want them all to die! Something has to be done. I have to get out of here.” She turns towards the cell door. No guards outside. If she were to break out now…

In an instant, she’s at the door, feeling hands over the frame to find where the control panel is on the outside. She finds it, and focuses for a moment, and then with a harsh grunt she uses the Force, and smashes a chunk of stone from the wall to get to the backside of the control panel. She shakes rubble off of her knuckles and grins to herself, reaching in and feeling for the wires. Obi-Wan sighs, shaking his head and rolling his eyes some.  
“Just like him, always on the move…” But within record time, Rey has the lock disengaging and the door hissing open. She looks pleased with herself, turning to face him again.  
“I told you, I’m getting out of here. They’ll be too scrambled to really chase after me…” She’s fumbling with the wrist cuffs as she speaks, but when she nearly gets the lock on them open they zap her, hard, and she yelps, letting out a string of profanities that make the Force-ghost run a palm over his face.  
“Rey!” She gets mad after this happens, and with a roar she smashes the cuffs against the wall, letting a current of the Force rush through her arms and crush the device entirely. It falls off of her arms, sparking and buzzing on the floor of the cell, and Rey brushes herself off.  
“See? Told you I could--”

There is a resounding ‘BOOM!’ and the ground shakes. Rey looks alarmed, turning towards the end of the hallway that leads aboveground. Something is happening. A ship has crashed.

She runs. She doesn’t have a weapon, but she isn’t afraid.  
_I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I am the weapon. The Force moves within me and I move within the Force. I am not afraid._  
Another voice, an unknown voice, from far away, joyous and kind.  
_Trust in it! All is as the Force wills it, little sister! You are one with the Force, and the Force is with you!_  
Rey feels excitement in her bones, feels energy, encouraged from somewhere out of time.  
“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” She says to herself as she rushes for the exit. Another boom, the walls shudder and crack around her, rocks begin to fall. “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” She dodges a falling beam from the lighting system, drawing strength to keep her moving, faster and faster. More noise overhead, more shaking. The detention block is collapsing. She can see the entry door. “I am one with the Force,” she raises her voice, feels hands and voices and spirits from so long ago guiding her, up the stairs and towards the light outside, dodging falling rock and moving with the shuddering ground. “And the Force is with me!”

Rey is outside again.  
She blinks in the sudden bright light from D’Qar’s sun, but there is chaos around her. All at once the relative quiet of the cell block is gone--there is shouting, screaming. Fires burn. There is blaster fire and the screaming of ships through the atmosphere. The air is clouding with black smoke. Her body sings with energy and new sensation, but one overtakes the rest, sends her gaze skimming the ground around her.

She can feel him.  
She can feel Kylo Ren.  
Without hesitation, Rey races towards what she feels.

 

The firefight is getting worse. The Resistance is fighting back on the ground now. Soldiers are going into formation amidst the chaos to fight back the oncoming Stormtroopers, but more ships are landing as the moments pass. Rey plunges into the fight, racing through blasterfire and past soldiers, Force-pushing bodies back and deflecting blaster-bolts as she runs. She’s unarmed, wishes she had her lightsaber. Her staff. Anything--but it’s too late, there’s no time.  
Some of the soldiers recognize her, shout, try to stop her, but Rey runs, doesn’t pause, doesn’t look back.

There are fires burning all around her. Soot is beginning to accumulate on her skin, smudging over her already dirty face. She runs through rubble and past fallen bodies, into the fires beginning to engulf the base. TIE Fighters are screaming through the air overhead, and Rey ducks as one comes skimming down low, low, overhead and then smashes into the ground not yards away from her. She’s sent flying back a few feet from the impact, and scrambles to try and get her bearings again. This is a warzone, too loud, too hot, too hard to breathe--it’s all she can do to snatch a blaster from a body nearby so she can shoot down a Stormtrooper advancing on her. She hurries to her feet, keeps the gun, trips over her feet a bit as she sets off again. At least now she’s armed.

Kylo Ren cuts his own path through the fighting. His helmet feels alien and restrictive to him now, the visor too thick, the cap too confining. His clothes are too heavy, he feels all wrong, and it only amplifies the rage he feels when he sees the Resistance soldiers, knowing they’ve been keeping Rey prisoner here. He’s hit in the side by a blaster bolt that skims over his skin through his tunic, and then another in the leg, and this finally sends him into a furious rampage. He cuts down anyone, anything, in his path. All he wants is Rey. All he focuses on is the feeling that she is nearby, the soft beacon that she is without the use of the bond. _I am coming, Rey,_ he thinks, snarling through his mask and sending soldiers flying out of his way with a wave of his hand. _I am coming for you._

 

Amidst all of this, Luke Skywalker emerges, lightsaber ignited, to face the fighting. He feels who is present, who is free, what is happening--he sees Rey running, sees her dashing through the battlefield, shooting Stormtroopers as she goes, and she seems to be _flying_ through the wreckage. She is going somewhere, and if his sense is true, he knows where. He turns, and follows after her.

Rey runs. She runs, dodges fire, ducks under fallen trees and cracked stone.  
_Kylo Ren! I feel you, I’m coming! I know you’re here!_ She doesn’t understand why he won’t let her in, but she knows he is here. Every part of her being aches to be with him again--she knows he has to feel the same. She _knows_ he does. He isn’t opening the bond to her, but there has to be a reason. Something must be wrong, but she’s coming, she’s going to find him, she’s going to make things right again!

In his fury, the lone Knight of Ren nearly loses himself; but then a flash of something--  
His head snaps around, eyes wide under his helmet as he catches sight of her.  
_REY!_ _  
_ Current enemies forgotten, he rushes towards her.

Rey sees him, finally, through a near wall of flames and black smoke. His lightsaber glows brighter red than anything around them--but his face… Rey’s brow knits. The helmet. His clothing. Why is he here like this?  
Desperately, she reaches into the Force, trying to reach for him. _Please, Kylo please, let me in, please let me in, what’s going on?!_ There is no reply.

Rey plunges into the fire, tucking her body together and skidding to a halt on the other side. Her clothing is already filthy, the soot is nothing now. She faces him across the battleground and throws the blaster in her hand aside. She is without weapon, staring him down in confusion and worry and fear.  
“Kylo Ren!” she shouts, knowing he sees her.  
He does. How could he not? His eyes are fixed on her as she emerges through the fire, and even dirty and ashen, she is glorious. He strides a few feet towards her, lightsaber down. He still is silent, can’t bring himself to speak. Rey is glad. The modulator...that isn’t his voice. She doesn’t want to hear it now.  
“Kylo!” She repeats, stepping towards him. “I--” She feels so overwhelmed, suddenly. Seeing him again...it hits her, just how long it’s been. Her vision muddles, swims, and she blinks tears onto her sooty cheeks. “Kylo, I…” _I was so afraid I was so alone I needed you I missed you I feared for you where have you been why are you here now I don’t understand I want to help you please let me in please…_

Finally, finally, he shuts off his lightsaber. Cuffs it to his belt. Reaches up and disengages the latch on his helmet, removing it.  
Rey’s breath catches, and her throat feels tight.

He looks more gaunt than she remembers. His face is pale, with the kind of pallor that makes him look sick. His hair is limp, and he looks exhausted, weary. His eyes, however, make Rey go cold and still.  
“Rey…” He manages to get out, and his voice is cracking and hoarse. He stares at her through yellow eyes, and Rey feels her head shaking before she realizes she’s doing it. No. No, this isn’t right...what’s happened to him…

She’s blindly walking to meet him now, her feet moving before she can stop them.  
“Kylo...Kylo what’s...what’s _happened_ to you?” She breathes, more horrified the closer she gets. He looks so sick, and so hurt...it makes her heart ache. When she’s just inches away from him, she has to stop herself from reaching out. Something is not right here, something is very, very wrong. “What is going on, why are you here like this??”

She looks so afraid, his Rey, his scavenger girl. She is so afraid for him, so worried for him. She stares, and he tosses his helmet aside. He is the one who reaches for her.  
“I came to find you,” he responds, the words falling out as if they are rehearsed, not his own. “I came here to save you. You have to come with me, Rey. I won’t let them lock you away again…” Rey steps back away from him, though. This isn’t Kylo Ren, not the man she knew. The voice is wrong, the eyes are wrong.  
“Kylo, what happened?? Why are you…”  
“You must come with me, Rey!” He suddenly lurches towards her, taking her wrist, his voice insistent, desperate. “Come with me, away from here. We can leave, we can be together, the Supreme Leader will allow it if I bring you--” His hand on her is icy, her skin burns with the cold of it, even with his gloves on. Rey recoils as if he’s bitten her. He eyes are wide and her mind is reeling.  
“What?!” She stares at him, terrified. What has Snoke done to him?! “I’m not--You’re not Kylo Ren, you aren’t him, I’m not going anywhere with you!”

Her mind is spinning. What’s going on--she might have been a prisoner, but something so much worse has happened to him. Rey stares at him and does not know him, too afraid to let him touch her again. _He’s gone, he’s gone, my Kylo, my Ben, this isn’t him, what do I do, where is he, what’s happened to him--_  
_Rey! Focus!_ A familiar voice comes to her. Obi-Wan Kenobi. _Focus! You trust yourself, you trust him. You can save him. Calm your mind, Rey. You can do this._  
_I--I’m so afraid. I thought I was ready, I thought I could do this--_  
_You can!_ She sees him in her memory, feels him in the Force around her. _You can do this. You have the strength, you know you do. Trust in yourself, Rey. Trust in the Force._  
She shuts her eyes for a moment, breathing in, the ghost of a smile curving over her lips.

_Thank you, grandfather._

Rey breathes. The battle raging around them seems to go muted, slowing down. All she focuses on is the man in front of her, staring at her with the wrong eyes.  
“Kylo…” She breathes, and in the Force, she reaches for him.

She’s met with cold. Cold darkness--but it feels like ice, a layer of ice over something beneath. Her hand in the metaphysical world presses to the frozen surface, and she feels it begin to warm under her touch, feels it drip and melt under her palm until it gives--and she falls forward through the shell of it.  
He’s waiting for her there. Ben Solo, but not Ben Solo. He cannot be, she remembers, not now. Not while Snoke can reach. The dark retreats from her, swirls around them. He is seated, collapsed as if in a corner of a room. He looks up at her sadly, and she can feel how weak he is. She crosses the space to him slowly, carefully. She feels it, there, finally. The thin strands of the bond between them--it’s weak now from inactivity, from his current state and hers, but it is still there. Rey goes to her knees in front of him, reaching to rest a gentle hand on his cheek.  
“Kylo…” She whispers, feels him lean into her touch.  
“Rey. It’s you.” He sounds so relieved, but afraid. “You shouldn’t be here.” She scowls, but does not withdraw.  
“No--no, _you_ shouldn’t be here. What _happened_ to you?!”  
“Snoke.” He breathes, and it is clearly a great effort for him to speak. “Snoke. I failed him. I didn’t bring you to him.” Rey rubs his skin gently, swallowing. She knew that he would face consequences if they were caught, but this…  
“So he tortured you.” She finishes, and he hangs his head. Rey feels tears sting her eyes.  
“He won’t stop until he has you.” She sniffs, wipes at her face.  
“Is that why you’re here? Why this...thing...wearing your face is here?”  
“Still me. Just...another mask.” He murmurs. “Had to find you before anyone else.” Rey gently coaxes him to look at her.  
“If I return with you...what will happen?” Her voice is deadly quiet. She feels him freeze up, his eyes fearful.  
“Rey you can’t--no--” She shushes him, shaking her head.  
“What happens if I go with you, Kylo?” He takes a slow, shuddering breath, shutting his eyes.  
“Terrible things.” She frowns.  
“We’ll be together?” His eyes open again, meeting hers. Something is there, something that makes him feel just a little less afraid. He manages a nod.  
“...If he believes...if he believes I am his to command.” Rey’s jaw sets, and she reaches to take his hand with her free hand, pushing strength from herself into him. The bond shivers, glows, _pulses_.  
“I have a plan.”

 

In the physical world this takes place in a matter of moments. Luke has caught up to them by the time Rey stares Kylo Ren down, and he stops short, seeing them face off. His nephew is changed, but suddenly something seems to shift--the air changes, and...he squints, brow knitting. Did Kylo Ren’s eyes change? Were they not always this brown? Hadn’t they been…  
"Rey!" He shouts at her across the expanse, taking a step forward. She cannot do this.  
Rey turns to face him, and the look on her face is...so strange, jarring almost. There is no fear in her eyes, there is no hesitation or worry. He sees certainty, peaceful and sure. She is angry with him, he senses it, but her eyes tell him to stay where he is.  _Do not interfere._ She outstretches her hand towards him, and before he knows it, the lightsaber--his, his father's, the lightsaber she has called forth before--slips from where he has been keeping it, and flies to her hand. She does not ignite it, she simply holsters it on her belt, and turns back to Kylo Ren, who stares his uncle down a moment longer before facing Rey again as well.

Rey takes a deep breath, and Kylo Ren reaches a hand up between them, offering it to her.  
A moment passes, something strange seems to take place.  
Rey gives the slightest nod and takes Kylo Ren’s hand, and her body goes limp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this might be the longest chapter to date
> 
> i've been waiting for this one for a while; i'm a little concerned things seem...rushed...but i did wanna get across a sense of urgency.  
> there's a lot going on now, a lot that's ABOUT to happen, too.  
> i've also been dying to add in some little bits from rogue one, too--if you think chirrut wouldn't jump at the chance to help future force-users and cheer them on, then idk what to tell you. i wish he could have met rey one day honestly :c this is the next best thing imo
> 
> i hope we all enjoyed the little reveal, too c;  
> i wonder how many of you saw it coming...
> 
> thank you guys all for reading and for sticking with me, those of you who have for all this time. you're amazing! everyone that's reading, leaving kudos and comments, enjoying the story--you guys are the reason i can get updates out. thank you all so, so much <3


	29. Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Incoming Transmission..._

\- **TRANSMISSION INTERCEDED** -

_…ana...r...eat...I repeat...eral Organa is...oard shuttle. Destination is curr…will be...ontact on arriva…._

_...alert for...ugitives...Jedi...se caution on appro...op...tives are informed...for Kylo Ren and R…_

\- **TRANSMISSION LOST** -

 

•

 

**ALERT! BOUNTY ANNOUNCED!**

**Wanted, ALIVE  
BY THE GALACTIC RESISTANCE  
**

**Name:** ‘Rey’  
**Species:** Human, Female  
**Age:** Twenty-One Standard  
**Wanted ALIVE for:**  Treason, assault, destruction of property, espionage.  
**Last Seen:** Escaping Resistance capture on D’Qar. Hunters advised to proceed with caution. Bounty is labeled **JEDI**. Armed and dangerous.  
**Reward:** _50,000 GCS_

 

 

•

 

 

_"Finalizer Command, this is Shuttle Designation Upsilon Seven Seven Six Four Three--inform General Hux we have Ren and the girl aboard. On our way to deliver."_

_"We read you, Six Four Three; General Hux is being notified. A bounty has been put out for the girl, Six Four Three; keep your eyes open, and continue on as instructed. Make certain the Supreme Leader recieves both Kylo Ren and the girl without fail."_

_"Understood."_


	30. Trance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Captivity._  
>  Fear. Delirium. Trepidation.

Aboard the command shuttle, Kylo Ren refuses to let anyone else get within feet of Rey.

She sleeps, it seems, her body laid out on a bench in a small nook of the shuttle interior. He stands guard as they fly, even going so far as to growl at a trooper who came just a little too close. He looks wild-eyed; they are told he lost his helmet in the struggle, but his expression and the rage in his gaze keeps the rest of the ship’s passengers at bay.

 

“We’re being taken to Snoke,” He tells Rey in the bond. She is curled up with her head on his lap, each of them clasping one of the other’s hands. The Force seems to be pulsing around them, and Kylo looks much more vital now. His thumb rubs the back of her hand and swallows, looking down. “I hoped this day would never come.”  
“That makes two of us.” Her voice is low, tired.   
“This is serious, Rey--”   
“I’m being serious.”   
“Rey if you...it’s not…” he takes a breath and swallows again, anxious and afraid, both of what lies ahead of them and her reaction. “This is not something I wanted to happen. Even with your idea...I don’t know what’s going to work. I don’t know how this is going to go.” His throat feels tight. Rey squeezes his hand gently, eyes still closed, body still at rest.   
“We’re going to make this work. We’re going to do this.”

Her confidence makes him feel so much worse. There is a long beat of silence, and he feels his stomach hollow out.  
“Rey, he wants to breed us.”

The words fall out of his mouth and he feels her go still.   
“He wants to create a new line of Force-sensitives, like you, like me. There isn’t anyone else alive with our power, and he knows it.” His voice is bitter and angry, and he nearly pulls his hand from Rey’s. She holds on, however, even if her chest feels strangely tight and she feels downright _ill_ at the thought of this.   
“That’s what you never wanted to tell me. That’s what you’ve been keeping from me.”   
“I didn’t want this to happen, I never thought things would get this far, that we would have to come to this…” He sounds so afraid, for himself, for her…   
“He...Snoke...he wants to breed the two of us like--like _animals_ \--just so he can…” She feels sick, shaking her head, eyes opening now. “..so he can take whatever children we might produce?” Kylo feels so incredibly ashamed of all this that he can’t look at her. Rey sits up, watching him. “And you….you...knew about this?”   
“Rey, I promise you--I promise you, I never wanted this to happen, never.”

She knows he’s telling her the truth.

There is quiet for a long moment, and then finally, amazingly, Rey’s hand tightens around his.  
“We’d better figure out how to get things going as fast as we can, then.”

He turns to look at her incredulously.  
“Rey--” She meets his gaze, shaking her head.   
“I’m not turning back, not now. We’re already this far; and we...we can make this work.” Her confidence here, the steadfast look in her eyes and the steadiness in her voice, they make him feel that much better about all of this, in spite of things. He gives a firm nod, but holds her gaze.   
“Rey, I’m telling you right now, I don’t know what he intends to do to make this happen. I don’t know what he plans to do do either of us to get what he wants. What I do know is that he intends to ensure there’s more than one child, just from the way he’s spoken of things in the past.” Rey takes a slow, deep breath, considering this.   
“You know, given our record, I’m not sure he’s going to get what he wants anyway. So that might be lucky…” Kylo blinks a time or two, trying to make sense of this.   
“...what?” She shrugs a little, looking at him.   
“I mean, as much as we’ve,” she gestures with both hands, “already done, and I’ve never...there hasn’t been…” Realization is slowly dawning on Kylo Ren, and he looks a little aghast.   
“....all that time, and we never….” She nods, glad he’s catching on, since she’s not entirely sure what all the terminology is.   
“Exactly.” He wipes a hand over his face, both stunned by the truth of it and embarrassed over the fact he never thought of any kind of protection.   
“How...that...seems…” Rey shakes her head.   
“I don’t know. Just...never happened.” She looks curious, thinking. “Maybe I just can’t have children in the first place. You know, on base there were women who would--er--what’s the word--well, they’d be _bleeding_ for a whole week--” Kylo waves a hand in front of himself to stop her.   
“No--I know what that--no, _no--”_ But he pauses, looking at her incredulously, “Wait, you mean that doesn’t happen to you?” She shakes her head.   
“Never has.” He squints a little.   
“Have you ever had any procedures done, or anything like that? I know you mentioned the thing with the hair removal…” Rey shakes her head again.   
“I mean I feel like I would remember like a _surgery_ or something like that…” He looks at a loss.   
“I don’t...know the answers for this.” Rey shrugs.   
“Well, I’m looking at it as a possibly lucky coincidence.” Kylo shakes his head, though, brow knitting some.   
“I hope it’s as lucky as you think.”

 

Kylo Ren is met by General Hux as he disembarks from the ship, Rey’s unconscious body in his arms. Hux is flanked by several officers and troopers as well as Captain Phasma, chromed and imposing. His arms clasped behind his back, the expression on his face imperious, Hux stares Kylo Ren in the eyes while giving his order:  
“Take the girl.”

Immediately Kylo Ren goes on the defensive, clutching Rey to his chest and glaring at the General, hand going for his lightsaber, but Rey’s voice stops him.  
_Kylo, don’t…_   
He’s startled enough that it gives the officers their opportunity to wrench Rey’s body from his grasp, and when he roars in shock and rage at the sudden intrusion and then absence, Hux stays his place.   
“Restrain Ren.”   
The troopers at his back move to follow their orders, with Phasma overseeing.   
“You can make this simple and submit, Kylo Ren,” comes her modulated growl as she advances on him. The Stormtroopers taking his arms and wrestling with him are clearly fighting to keep their hold, but even now, they know Ren is restraining himself. This would be a losing battle if he were not. He shoves one of them off but Hux steps just a bit closer, staring him down.   
“Phasma has a point, Ren. Make this easy on yourself, and it will be easy on the girl as well. Continue to resist, and I doubt Leader Snoke will be so merciful on her as he has been with you.”

Kylo goes still, eyes widening some. Rey. Where are they taking her? They wouldn’t take her straight to Snoke, not without him there, would they?  
The Stormtroopers manage to get him onto his knees, cuffing his arms behind him, and the prone man glares up at Hux.   
“Where is she being taken? She’s mine, I captured her, I delivered her here. I will be the one to take her to Snoke.” He snarls it through his teeth, and Hux simply looks down his nose at him.   
“After your repeated failures, this was the very _least_ you could do. The girl is being taken to medbay for inspection. The Supreme Leader has required that _you_ be brought to him immediately.”

 

Rey does finally rouse when she’s properly separated from Kylo Ren.  
Their energy circulation has gone on long enough, and by now they both feel at top form; but as she already warned him, they have to be precise here. They have a plan. Now isn’t the time to overreact or cause even _more_ problems for themselves.   
Still….she isn’t sure she was expecting this. She’s being walked through a cold hall on a gurney, strapped to it tightly. They don’t want her getting away, clearly, but she’s wondering where she’s being taken. She can sense Kylo Ren getting further and further away, and lurking beyond that, a cold, fearsome presence, veiled but not completely suppressed. Why? Why are they taking her away--what are they going to do?   
Well, _try_ to do. Rey might be bound, but she is not helpless. If this is not going to affect her main goal, she won’t struggle, but…

The hall changes to a very cold room with very bright lights. Not an interrogation room, this is--  
She’s abruptly moved into a more upright position, the gurney shifting under her. The officers have noticed she’s alert, and study her unabashedly. Two females, she’s judging, human. Probably a good few years older than she is. They look her over with indifferent appraisal.   
“Awake. Are you alert, girl?” One asks, as the other goes to look for something. Rey gives her a cool gaze back.   
“Where am I?” The officer turns away from her to look over a datapad the second female hands her as she responds, dismissing the other officer now.   
“You are in our medical facility here. You’re going to be processed.” Rey swallows a little, keeping her expression neutral. All right, this is...standard, she’s assuming.   
“What do you mean by ‘processed’?” The officer sounds annoyed by her questions.   
“You will be given a full inspection by our technicians here, and once you are declared fit for use, the process will be done with.” She clicks the datapad off and strides for the door when another officer followed by three droids enters. The two women nod at one another. “Proceed. We need results as soon as possible.” And with that, Rey is left with the medical officer and her droids.

This woman is older as well, and no less cool than the others. She sets the droids to work immediately, and then stands over Rey with a datapad of her own, letting one of the med droids wheel a tray over to her.  
“This should go quickly if you cooperate. I will be reviewing your vital information as well as taking samples of your blood, and performing a reproductive evaluation.”   
Rey is not sure what all of this is going to entail. She is also beginning to wonder just how many people are aware of what her purpose here is to be.

 

Almost immediately, Rey has _very firmly_ decided she does not like medical procedures in the slightest. She’s never really been to a medbay or a medtech before, not besides the quick-fix stations on Jakku. This is uncomfortable, and _invasive_ , and she doesn’t like it one bit. She’s stripped of all her clothing, and put through a sanitizer that makes her feel like a droid and smells like chemicals. They strap her to a strange contraption that reminds her of the interrogation chair she woke up in so long ago. The med droids chatter, probably not realizing she can understand them. They say she is free of parasites but shows signs of previous malnourishment. Her muscles seem hyperformed in some places for her assumed age. _Kylo Ren was right,_ she thinks idly when she hears them mention she seems about twenty-one standard years now.   
They prod at her arms, legs, belly, breasts--she can’t swat them away, but that isn’t to say she doesn’t try to. The room is _freezing_ all the while, and her skin is prickling and icy, but there isn’t much she can do about that either. She hisses and gnashes her teeth when one of the med droids inserts a long needle into her arm, and she’s certain she can _feel_ the blood being sucked out of her, watching the deep red slowly fill up the droid’s collection for it. They’re taking so much--is this safe? Isn’t that too much blood to lose?   
“Bloodwork seems normal…” She can hear the medtech talking to herself, muttering the followup, “...For a force-user…” the woman seems almost disdainful, and Rey looks away. Even here, there is disdain for people like her.   
“Vitals all seem normal...beginning reproductive scan.” She feels anxious about this and is beginning to contemplate just breaking out right this instant--but then one of the droids begins spreading her legs apart, and she bucks against the restraints, immediately trying to stop this from happening.   
“Hey!” She exclaims indignantly, flushed and confused. There’s something sliding up between her thighs, and Rey tenses up, struggling enough that the med droids stop and she busts out of one of the restraints on her legs, but the medtech looks irritated.   
“I told you to cooperate, girl,” she sniffs, and picks up a syringe and taps at the vial a bit with a bored look on her face.  Rey tries to shy away from the needle but it’s in her arm before she can stop it.   
“What--No--!” The woman withdraws the needle and sighs, tapping something else into the datapad.   
“Sedative will be taking effect….now.” The droids are still chirping and whirring around her, but Rey’s vision starts to blur and darken. Damn, shit--a sedative, she’s fading now, she feels it making her limbs go limp and slowing her heartrate. Kylo--where is Kylo?? She tries to reach out in the Force to him but he is guarded, and she knows it must be because of _him_ …

There isn’t much more she can hear or see here. Rey passes out under the bright med lights, and once she’s properly fainted, the exam continues.

 

When Rey wakes, she is redressed in plain black clothing. Her limbs feel heavy--there was another sedative administered when she began to stir before her examination was finished, and she’s still feeling the effects of it. She feels weak from all of the blood drawn and the procedures done to her, and there is a strange, unpleasant ache between her legs. Rey isn't sure she senses anything really...different...but she feels exposed and violated.

She is currently standing alone in a strange, small room--it’s cold here, too. They’re aboard a ship of some kind, she can sense more now that she’s focusing. Kylo is very close to her now--but so is the dark presence. Rey goes still, feeling around. She closes her eyes and reaches out, but just as she tries to focus, there are guards--all in red, armor and robes, even their weapons--and they are taking her by her arms, leading her into the next room.

She is hit with a cold, a darkness, so deep that it’s like running into a wall. It jars her, makes her skin prickle and her nerves stand on end, and she feels almost slowed by it. She’s been led into a huge chamber; she’s faced with two strange instruments that look again terribly similar to the interrogation chairs, and then beyond them, a cold metal throne. The guards drop her arms when she is closer to the throne, and Rey stays straight, on her feet.

She is not alone with the guards.

Seated in the throne facing her is a horrid, disfigured creature--it’s sallow skin is wrinkled and riddled with pockmarks, stretching, and places where it simply looks torn. It looks sickly and twisted, but even seated, Rey can tell this... _thing_...is well over six feet tall, and not human.

To the side, looking as stoic as possible but staring at her with concern in his eyes, is Kylo Ren.

Rey meets his gaze only for a moment, only long enough to send that she’s all right, she’s here, they’re going to be all right, and faces the creature on the throne. _Snoke_.

 

“The scavenger girl who tore through my pupil...at last we meet.”

The creature’s voice is gravelly, low. Rey steels herself, staring him down, setting her jaw, unwilling to respond. He gestures to her with a knobbed hand.  
“I have waited quite some time for this moment. You have been the source of great, great turmoil for me…” Rey grits her teeth.   
“Then why not come after me yourself?” She challenges the thing, angry--she feels angry, she feels _furious_ knowing she’s faced with the creature that’s been responsible for so much violence and bloodshed, for so many lives lost, for so much pain--the creature who hurt Ben Solo for so long. Snoke only _smiles_.   
“I believed my student would be enough to bring you here. I was wrong--however, I believe his meeting you was rather fortuitous, in the end.” Rey’s brow knits, and the creature chuckles some, steepling his fingers. “Your little ‘bond’ should make things all the easier.” Rey swallows, feels her fingers flex into fists. She knows Kylo Ren is feeling the same, is biting back rage, fighting his urge to react. They both wait, just a little more, just a little longer.

Snoke motions to Kylo Ren.  
“I am certain Kylo Ren has told you what your purpose here is, by now. You seem to have a very firm hold on his loyalties, but he understands who his master remains. The two of you are to be progenitors to a new race--never before has the galaxy seen your likes,” Snoke looks pleased with himself, his smile sickening, “Never have two such powerful Force-sensitives existed at the same time this way. With proper genetic modification at an early stage…” He clenches a spindly, knotted fist. “Your bloodline could be _perfect_. An unstoppable race of Force-sensitives to rule the galaxy. No more of the Jedi, or the Sith--no longer would the Force be repressed or restrained. Once again, those with this power would be in control...our kind, _your_ kind, would never have to hide again.”

Rey goes a bit still. She wonders what could prompt motives like these--how old is this creature? How long has this been such a problem in his eyes, why…  
“Now...before we begin, let me test this power of yours…”

Snoke reaches a hand out towards Rey, and her thoughts stop. Her mind erupts in an explosion of sudden images, sounds, light and dark, an overload of senses and power that makes her convulse and scream in the huge room. Her voice echoes off of the walls as she struggles to fight back, to push him out, to make this stop--and the barrage on her consciousness ebbs just slightly before it stops, and he retracts from her so that she comes tumbling back to the present to find herself clasped tightly in Kylo Ren’s grasp.

He’s leaned over her with fear in his eyes, shaking her frantically. She can hear the hum of his lightsaber next to them, and Snoke is growling behind them at the intrusion. The ancient creature is standing now, and towers over the both of them, a fist clenched menacingly at them as he glares. Her whole body feels like it’s vibrating, and she feels power coursing through her too wild, too unchecked, so much so that its intensity scares her. Rey grabs Kylo’s hand and holds it tight, shifting to her knees next to him, the two of them turning to face Snoke behind the red glow of Kylo’s lightsaber.  
“ _You weak, foolish boy!_ ” His voice thunders and echoes through the room, and Rey can see in her periphery that the red-clad guards are back in the room and moving in on the two of them now. “You will never be free of this weakness!” He gestures towards the two of them to the guards, narrowing his sunken eyes. “Take them both!” He settles back into his seat as the guards-- _Praetorian, Praetorian, don’t struggle, not now, won’t let them hurt you, keep my hand_ \--move in around Rey and Kylo Ren, grabbing the both of them and wrestling them to their feet, holding their weapons with silent warning as they take Kylo Ren and Rey’s lightsabers both, and fit the two captives with strange collars that crackle with electricity before locking around their necks. Kylo struggles with one of the guards holding him and Rey feels it when he gets a shock via the horrible things they’ve been fitted with. She cries out in surprise and worry, wrenching her hand free and reaching for him, but she gets a little jolt in return for this. Snoke only chuckles, exhaling loudly and giving a dismissive wave. “Their pathetic _compassion_ will only help me in ushering in our new bloodline.”

 

They won’t allow themselves to be separated, even with the collars in place.

The Praetorian Guards drag them through corridors with their hands just barely touching between them. Not a word is spoken the entire journey, not until they’re at the entrance to some kind of...it looks like an interrogation room, in that it’s very small, detached, and seems to have a surveillance system within. There is no strange chair in this room, however, only a metal table covered in a white cloth that reminds Rey of something in the medbay and a small stack of some kind of fabric set against one wall. Another trio of medtechs are waiting for them with a hovertray and a datapad, watching as the guards push the two of them into the small room. Immediately their hands link and they face the medical officers together now, silent and daring them to do anything, their hands nearly crushing one another in the tight grip they both keep.  
_Whatever happens--_   
_Whatever happens now, we’re in this together._   
Even as the medtechs advance on them with the hovertray.   
_We’ll be fine._   
Even as they’re both very quickly injected in their necks with something unnamed, something that makes their skin prickle and their mouths go dry almost immediately.   
_We’re together, we’ll…_   
_We’ll be okay…_   


The door latches shut behind the medtechs as they exit, taking care to record information on their datapad and check their instruments as one of them gets on a comlink.  
“Drugs have been administered. The Progenitors are quarantined, progress will be monitored and first results will be recorded in forty-eight hours.”

 

Inside their strange cell, Rey and Kylo Ren are swaying some on their feet, feeling the effects of whatever they were injected with start to take hold. Rey shakes her head erratically as if to wake herself up, frowning.  
“What the hell...what the fuck did they...what is this…” Kylo lets go of her hand to brace himself against the wall.   
“Shit. It’s some--it’s some kind of fucking sedative…” Rey feels her heartbeat picking up, feels the room heating up, feels acutely aware of Kylo Ren’s presence near her--this isn’t just one drug, this isn’t something that’s going to be simple. She’s felt poisons of all kinds, but this… Rey swallows thickly, rolling her shoulders and swiping her hair back out of her face, shaking her head.   
“Oh fuck…” Kylo Ren sees her pupils dilate, can see her starting to shift on her feet, feels her heart pounding, and feels a very familiar and very recognizable shift starting in his own body. His eyes widen at the realization and he runs a hand over his face.   
“....Shit.”

The room’s getting hazy. The two of them are too hot, too restless, get within reach of each other and suddenly crave skin, skin, more and more of it, and within minutes they’re tearing at their clothing and frenzied to get closer to each other without barrier or hurdle. Their concerns from before seem foggy and vague now, their limbs are heavy and feel strange, their skin feels electric and hot and silk-smooth. This is strange desire, artificially induced lust that could be real, and it is overwhelming and pervasive. The manic desire clashes with the forced sedation, however, and they react with near rage against their slowed bodies, grasping at one another and pressing together to spite the lethargy they feel.  
In the small enclosed room, they crash together into the walls until one stops them at Rey’s back, Kylo Ren holding her against the cold metal surface as she wraps her legs around his waist, biting at his mouth and grasping at his hair. He bares teeth at her and slams her back into the wall with every rock of their bodies. The Bond is _chaotic_ , a cacophony of sounds and energy and confusion wreaking havoc between them as they crash together again and again.

Everything feels bizarrely ritualistic, almost feral, in this strange haze. Too hot, breathing hard, skin shining with sweat and the slick of one another as they writhe on the durasteel floor. Even the metal is no longer cold; but it wouldn’t matter either way. Rey’s legs lock around Kylo Ren’s hips, drawing him into her. His teeth bury into her neck under her strange collar, mark her as _his_ . His skin tastes like fire and dark and smoke, hers feels like the ocean and the night sky, and they rove over one another greedily to take whatever they can for as long as they can. This is different than the slow lovemaking they knew on Naboo. This is unlike the strange roughness they battled with--this is something ancient and animalistic and dangerous. This is _mating_.

It lasts _hours._ They stay locked together, shifting positions and places, breathing heavy as their bodies undulate with a steady and deliberate rhythm over and over and over. They seem unwilling to part; never more than centimeters from touching completely, rolling waves of fevered skin and pressing fingers and panting lips. Tongues that burn and hair sticking to skin, they use not the bond nor words but their physical bodies to communicate here. Rey clings to him, pulls him in, keeps him close, locks arms around him possessively. She marks his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his back, his legs--she claims him as _hers_ and coaxes him to release alongside her own again and again. He crushes her against himself, their bodies so flush against each other that they can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins--he drives into her and claims her as _his_ with each stroke of his hips to her own. Kylo Ren’s body eagerly chases Rey’s; desperate to have and claim and be _part of_ \--and her body envelops his, swallowing him whole with the desire to _consume_. Locked together within or without the Force, they feel like _one_ , and now without the bond to connect, this is what they cling to.

Even when they rest, finally, _finally_ , they are still pressed firmly together. His hand keeps her head pressed to his shoulder, her legs keep him buried deep inside her. Rest is tenuous and too-short. When they begin to drift, their bodies spent and tired, sleep comes quickly--but the medtechs return. They do not know how long they have been here. They do not know how long this will go on. The bond shudders and gasps between them, struggling to normalize again, but their minds are still hazy and they try to find one another in their mental stupor the moment the drugs begin to wane even in the slightest. It is fruitless; the medical officers come once, twice, again, all to administer vitamins intravenously with even more of their drugs, forcing the both of them to swallow food supplements. At the very least it isn’t easy for them--Kylo Ren refuses to let any of them touch Rey for too long, and Rey fights them when they try to disentangle her from Kylo Ren.

After hours and hours--they lose track of it all. There are visits periodically but only once do the medtechs enter with troopers to restrain Kylo Ren so they can remove Rey for an exam. Rey fights them as hard as her drugged body can, until they sedate her to look her over.  
Whatever they find seems insufficient, however, since she wakes in the small room later and latches onto Kylo Ren, who holds onto her protectively in her induced-sleep.   
Eventually they figure out how to wait out the drugs. Try to stay active, keep moving, keep awake. Fool the security sys that they are still intoxicated just to steal a few moments of clarity, because after so long the officers come again on their own.   
  
_How do we get out how do we get free this isn’t going to stop_   
_So tired I am so tired I am afraid_   
_We have to do something we have to make it stop_   
_Something is different something is going to happen_   
_Child a child they want a child we cannot give that to them_   
_My body is so tired something is changed I feel changes and I am afraid_   
_We cannot give them what they want_   
  
Rey feels her body changing--she feels something shifting, and it frightens her. They take her for exams and she fights for clarity, tries to push through the haze to catch something, anything, to tell her what is happening. Each time is the same, so far: no conception. No child. Not yet.

She is terrified of what will happen if there ever is.

In actuality it has been nearly two weeks; the medtechs are monitoring everything as closely as possible, but Snoke is impatient for results. General Hux is sent to personally check in.  
“Why is it taking so long?” He sniffs, looking over charts presented to him on datapads and grumbling to himself more than anyone else, “This is something even Ren can’t possibly manage to cock up...” The medtechs shake their heads, and as the General’s eyes roam over surveillance footage from the ‘Progenitors’ Cell’, Rey is brought in again. She lies still on a gurney as they enter an examination room with her, and Hux’s attention is drawn immediately.   
“She is showing signs of hormonal shifts. This has nothing to do with Kylo Ren, General--the girl was implanted with an infertility assurance: a hormone inhibitor.” Hux’s brow knits as his eyes roam over the girl’s body--her tanned skin marred with blue and violet and red and green, angry bruises over her freckles that confirm Ren has not been so gentle with her. His eyes fix to the spots mottling her hips, her her shoulders, her neck, her breasts...his nose wrinkles some at the sight. Disgusting.  
“Explain.”   
“Crude things, they’re used on less-developed worlds as a means of keeping undesirables from breeding. Population control--I’ve heard they’re widely used by the Hutts.”   
“And she had one of these things in her?” The tech looks over a datapad, nodding as they read.   
“From the look of it for quite some time. Probably implanted when she was a child--we’ve extracted it, but the effects will need time to wear off and the hormonal signals sent naturally by her own body will need to normalize. It’s beginning to happen; I would imagine we could see successful conception within the next week.”

This time, when Rey is brought back, she is visibly shaken.  
Their brief moment of sobriety has her clutching his arm, trembling as she tucks her knees to her chest and shakes her head.   
_It’s going to happen it’s going to happen they think soon there are changes there are signs--_   
_Signs signs what is happening what is changing Rey, Rey, Rey--_   
_Something inside something there something taken away and now--_ _  
_ Rey struggles to stay coherent, gritting her teeth and grasping inwardly at the sliver of Force energy she can feel. _I’m not going out this time I’m not letting this happen!_

The Force shivers. Threads of it whisper through her grasping fingers until she finally closes her fist, and latches onto what she can.

There is a moment of silence and still, and then an eruption.  
Rey’s body shudders and she is thrust back into sobriety immediately. She gasps for breath and feels adrenaline pumping through her veins, as if she’s woken up too quickly and struggling to control her own limbs.   
“Ky-Kylo--” She gasps, and crawls over a tangle of limbs, jittery and wide-eyed. She needs--She needs--   
He’s still under. Rey takes his hands from her waist when they find her, holds them tight in hers. He fights her, struggles to pull her closer and kiss her, and finally she gives in, but lets her consciousness slip into the Force, reaching for him there. It’s like there’s a fog between them, something obscuring the two of them from each other, and Rey pushes through it to try and find him. It’s like quicksand, like her limbs are heavy and slow-moving here. His mind is so clouded, just as she knows hers was, but she finds him at last, finds him fighting to try and get to her as well.   
_REY!_  He roars over the silence between them, white noise that is the chaotic stream of thoughts the drugs have created in them. Rey fights through haze and wills herself to keep going, focused on him, on getting free of this.   
_Kylo! I’m coming, I’m here, I’m right here!_ It feels like looking for him in the dark again, and Rey stops just a moment, shuts her eyes, focuses. The Force is with her, here. The bond is still here, and the bond is the Force. They can make this stop.

She reaches a hand out into the gray.

_Come here, come to me. The bond is the Force, and we are the bond. Focus. Come to me._

It is work keeping herself focused, keeping the haze from overtaking her again. She breathes hard, keeping her arm up and outstretched, focusing, trying to find him. But then...she feels something change.  
Within moments, the haze seems to shiver around her, and then a hand grabs hers--and all at once, Kylo Ren stands in clear view in front of her.   
He is panting for breath and both of them shake, but his hand grips hers tightly and hers does his in turn. Rey exhales a shuddering breath, her eyes never leaving his as he stares at her, fingers squeezing hers just a little tighter for a moment.   
“We did it.”

 

Their grip remains unshaken, as if at any moment they could let go and be lost to the fog again. Their bodies remain entwined in the physical world, but here they can speak. Rey stares at Kylo, fear in her eyes.  
“I heard them. I heard them when they examined me--”   
“That’s what they’ve been doing?”   
“--They said there was something--something inside my body, something making it so I wasn’t able to get pregnant before. They took it out, they said it was blocking my hormones, and now it’s gone--”   
“What?! How was it--I’ll _rend_ that fucking monster, I’ll feed him his own filthy--”   
“--It’s _gone_ , do you get it?! Now it’s _gone_ , and the effect of it is wearing off, so what I keep feeling--”   
“--You…” His eyes go wide and his mouth goes dry at the suggestion, the realization. “You’re not…” She shakes her head vehemently.   
“ _No!_ ” Her hand is trembling with the rest of her and she tries to breathe deep. “No--but...if that’s what’s happening, then I could…” He leans in close, furious and fiercely protective. The drugs have taken a toll on both of them, but Rey is _afraid_. She is being used and she feels herself losing control over her own body. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say--he knows that no matter what he tells her, it might not even work. They’ve found the bond again, but in the physical world there are still repercussions to their actions. He wants to keep her safe, beyond reason or rationale. He doesn’t know what to do, but he does not want her to be afraid.   
“Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it. I’ll get us out of this.” Rey swallows, shaking her head, unsure what to do herself.   
“I don’t _know_. And if something happens before we can get out…” His hand tightens around hers again.   
“What else can you remember? Anything--if there’s anything…” She swallows, shuts her eyes, tries to think. What can she recall? Anything? Anything to help them?

“... _He_ was there,” she breathes out, and Kylo’s brow knits.   
“Who?”   
“The man...the General. The one who danced with me--”   
“He did _what_ \--”   
“--He was watching...I think he was there to...check on things.” She shakes her head.   
“Fucking bastard...did he touch you? What did he do?” He sounds enraged, and Rey shakes her head again.   
“No, just...watched. He was monitoring. Snoke sent him. They are becoming impatient…” Kylo Ren is furious, but he thinks. If Snoke is getting impatient, then Hux is being sent to speed things along if at all possible. If he was sent to the examination, then next he could be sent--   
“He’s coming here.” Kylo Ren meets Rey’s eyes, “If he was sent there, he’ll be sent here next. He’ll--”   
“He’ll have guards. And they’ll have weapons.” Her statement could have been fearful, but a grin splits her face. Kylo can’t help but grin back.   
“We’re getting out of here. When we do, we go to my old rooms, and then we go for the throne.” Rey nods, breathing in and out.   
“We take him out.” He nods with her. Rey swallows, thinking. “How long do you think we have?” Kylo shakes his head.   
“A day at most. Hux is irritated at having to do this, I know he is.” Rey nods slowly.   
“Then we’d better be ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so things are....more than a little rocky right now.  
> i wanted to address some concerns about rey's fertility and the fact that these two are, while well-meaning, complete messes when it comes to actually being safe.  
> this is....a very loud wakeup call.  
> sort of.
> 
> i also ended up tiptoeing around the topic of 'well what do we do IF--' since i think neither of them are particularly ready for that conversation and rey probably honestly doesn't know enough about the whole thing to even know what to say. it's when i'm writing things like this that it dawns on me just how much she probably wouldn't understand or be educated about, and it's a little scary in some ways, from the point of view of another woman.  
> drugs are also weird and really scary sometimes, guys. i can't imagine what kind of wild space-drugs they have out there, but i guess in terms of actual reactions their trips could have been worse...
> 
> snoke's a gross dude.  
> i think that's what we can ultimately take away from this.


	31. Havoc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ritual.  
> Lascivious deception. Havoc. Flight.

Hux has taken to keeping tabs on the progress of the ‘Progenitors’. The medtechs ask no questions when he requests a feed of their security footage in the cell, and discreetly oblige, patching a camera feed through to his personal monitors.

He watches them, Ren and the girl. Drugged as they are, they still seem bizarrely intimate. The girl looks small compared to Ren’s hulking frame this way, and yet she still accommodates him somehow-- _eagerly_ , even. Hux watches as she grasps at Ren’s hair, his hips, and ruts back against him just as desperately as he thrusts into her; it is a disgusting spectacle, truly, watching the girl arch and keen and _present_ herself for Ren.  
The feed stays on.

The girl moves astride Ren now, performs as another dominant, pins her partner _her lover_ beneath her. He watches Ren’s face as he watches the girl--Ren is enthralled, his hands frame her torso as she undulates above him.  
The girl. The _scavenger_. A filthy little thing from Jakku.  
He sees the look in Kylo Ren’s eyes, and knows she is much, much more than that.

Snoke summons him, after another week of nothing.

“My patience is waning. Kylo Ren is proving his uselessness—he and the girl may be managing to impede us, left together as they are. You will take his place, General.” Hux feels his mouth go dry. Thinks of the girl, her bruised skin and swollen lips, and Snoke inclines his head some, looking down at Hux imperiously. “A great honor, General. See that _you_ do not disappoint me. I want the girl bred.”

General Armitage Hux has never been a man to get his hands dirty.  
He slides precise fingers into his leather gloves, and then sets off to carry out his task.

 

Their time in the bond now is spent planning, conserving energy. They still have to keep up appearances, but it’s Kylo that senses something first.  
_He’s watching us._ Rey sounds confused, replying.  
_I thought we knew…_ _  
_ _No,_ Kylo responds, _He’s watching us on the cameras. I think he’s enjoying this._ Rey’s quiet, digesting this. She remembers the man’s cold hands and colder eyes, and Kylo Ren curls around her protectively in the bond. _He won’t ever touch you again,_ he snarls, and Rey holds him close. She knows why General Hux is watching the security feed. She doesn’t like it, but she knows.

Kylo Ren knows, as well. He senses it, and it makes him simmer with rage. How _dare_ that bastard even _look_ at Rey--Rey senses the source of his aggravation, and she soothes him in the bond as she can. In the physical world, however, she curls around Kylo Ren protectively, possessively, and over his shoulder, her eyes wander to where she knows the camera is watching them. His arms tighten around her and she buries teeth into his neck, rocking against him and digging nails into his broad back. He is hers.  
And she is his.

 

Just as Kylo Ren has predicted, they receive a visitor soon enough. They can’t properly gauge days; they only know it hasn’t been _so_ long.

He isn’t particularly looking forward to dealing with this. The two ‘Progenitors’ are not what he wants to focus his time on—though admittedly seeing Ren so debased isn’t so unappealing. But the girl…

The door to the cell unlocks and slides open, admitting General Hux and three Stormtroopers--though at the moment, the two occupants are...preoccupied.

Ren is seated on the table—it’s been knocked back against the far wall, stripped of its fabric cover. His back is to the wall and he is hunched over, body mostly hidden from sight, face buried against the neck of the scavenger girl.

She, however, is within perfect view.

She straddles Ren’s waist, legs spread wide to accommodate his thick thighs. She is _indecently_ bared to them: Hux’s eyes trail over her body, arched and thrusting her small breasts upwards, the muscles in her abdomen contoured and slightly straining from her position and down to the tuft of brown curls between her legs--though he looks away after a moment too long; Ren’s arm is around her waist, fingers spreading her open to rub at her clit as she rams her hips down onto him. Her arms are stretched back over her head to hold Ren’s head close to her, and Ren’s eyes flick up to meet Hux’s in time to see him flush and cough into his hand, turning his head a bit. The girl is moaning loudly, starting to grind her cunt down onto Ren’s cock, her motions getting erratic now. Ren is _staring_ at him as he sinks his teeth into the crook of the scavenger girl’s neck, making her cry out and jerk in a way that makes her sink all the way down onto his cock, her whole body shuddering, and Hux _swears_ he can see even the slightest bulge in the girl’s abdomen as she bucks and winds her hips against Ren’s.

She grits her teeth and grasps at Ren’s hair, letting out a guttural groan as he continues to rub circles around her clit and rock his hips up against her, his face partially buried against her skin still. His opposite arm is locked around her torso to hold her against him, and Hux is mesmerized watching the two of them writhe against each other until finally Ren’s arm nudges the girl’s head so that he can kiss her--Hux is honestly somewhat taken aback by this gesture, even if there is blood on Ren’s lips, smearing over her skin, and their hips move a bit more deliberately as their mouths meet.  
The girl breaks the kiss to scream as she comes, her whole body convulsing and her eyes rolling, her fingers curling tightly into Ren’s hair. He grunts and his arms hold the girl in place as she shakes and jolts against him, and Hux is hyper aware of the Stormtroopers facing away from things behind him, of every minute shift of his clothing against his skin, of the slow rock of the girl’s hips again after a painfully long moment, her legs trembling around Ren’s, her chest heaving with each breath she takes. A blanket of silence falls over the room now that they are done, but Hux can hear his own heart beating and blood rushing in his ears. There is blood smeared on the girl’s lips and Ren’s, and slowly her limbs release their hold on Ren, though his arms wrap more tightly around her and he bows his head to press a line of kisses along her neck and to her shoulder. Hux has to cough and clear his throat to get the attention of everyone in the room again. The troopers go back to attention, but the couple in front of them only slowly turn their heads to regard their visitors, their eyes still somewhat hazy from the drugs they’ve been pumped full of. For a moment Hux has to collect himself, staring at the two Jedi in front of him, both completely nude and covered in bruises, blood smeared on their mouths, their bodies still intimately connected as they recline in each others’ embrace. Finally he manages to speak, even if the two bizarre creatures are staring him down.

“Restrain Ren. Remove the girl. The Supreme leader wants them separated.”

The Stormtroopers move forward on command, though there is a noticeable delay to their movements that suggests they’re at least still a bit shaken from the display just now.  
Kylo Ren and Rey keep their eyes on Hux as Kylo’s arms release Rey, and slowly, slowly, she goes on all fours and eases herself up off of his lap. There is a slick sound as Rey separates their bodies completely and she shivers at the sudden empty feeling, but she watches Hux’s eyes go to the slow leak of fluid down her inner thighs and eases back onto her legs a bit, lifting a hand up as the Stormtroopers close further in on the two of them and crushing the security cameras with an assist from the Force and a flick of her wrist. The noise makes the troopers pause and Hux’s brow knit, and before anyone else can react, Kylo Ren is up and sends two troopers flying back into the walls of the cell, their helmets cracking with the impact and their bodies crumpling to the ground. Rey slams the third into the ground--legs out from under them until they hit the durasteel floor face-first and lie still. Hux is moving to exit, but the door behind him won’t unlock; he pushes the comm buttons to try them, but nothing is responding. The moment he turns to look back at the two Jedi again, however, Rey is directly behind him, staring him in the face with a terrifyingly lucid look in her eyes now.  
“You’re not going anywhere, Armitage Hux.”

 

When a squadron of Stormtroopers and two of the medtechs arrive at the cell later on, the door is wide open and the ‘Progenitors’ are long gone. The troopers that were injured have been stripped of their weapons, and are disoriented and wounded--and General Hux is nursing a bloodied nose and a very strong headache, and at present he’s mostly undressed. Red in the face and furious, he snaps orders at the arriving soldiers while being offered a tunic to walk back to his chambers in.  
“Find Ren and the girl _immediately_!”

 

“Do you know I’m _bleeding_?” Rey snips at Kylo as they creep around corners and down corridors, aiming for his room. He doesn’t look at her, peeking around the wall they’re rounding, the two of them pausing before turning the corner.  
“Uh-huh…” Rey dips the General’s coat off of her shoulder to brandish the last bite-mark Kylo gave her.  
“You’re an absolute animal, you know that?” He glances back at her now, making a face.  
“You’re really gonna whine about that right now?” She looks offended, hurrying around the corner and following him to another short hallway.  
“I am not _whining_!” He has both of them duck behind a doorframe as a pair of Stormtroopers pass by, keeping his voice down.  
“You absolutely are.” Rey scowls at him, hissing to keep from being heard and hurrying along beside him.  
“I am not. I just can’t believe you bit me that hard.” Kylo just shrugs a bit, glancing back at her with a very visible smirk on his face.  
“You weren’t complaining when it happened.” She can’t argue with this, but snorts a little, finally having to hide a grin.  
“That was the drugs, obviously.” He rolls his eyes, waving her down a hallway with him.  
“I’m the one that should be complaining, I’m not even wearing pants--” Rey snorts at this, ducking into a small room behind him and taking in the fact he’s been running around the ship with her with Hux’s shirt tied like a skirt around his waist. He looks at the pants on _her_ , though they’re still loose.  
“That’s not _my_ fault. They were too small for you!” He runs a hand through his hair.  
“Let’s get moving.”

Rey looks around the small room as he hurriedly tosses clothing at her and dons some robes himself.  
“This is your room? You stayed here?” He nods, letting her get dressed.  
“Mm. Can’t say I enjoyed it much.” Rey shakes her head.  
“It’s about three sizes too small for you, for one…” He rolls his eyes.  
“I didn’t spend much time here then. I don’t intend to now, either.” Rey nods, cinching a black sash around her waist. His clothes swallow her--but she’s found a pair of pants she can tie off, and part of his robes that are reminiscent of the clothes she wore while training before, just...black. She starts for the door, tying her hair back with a strip of fabric she tore off of the pants she’s taken.  
“I completely agree. Let’s go.” But Kylo grabs her arm.  
“Rey.” She stops, looking back up at him. She understands, without him saying anything, and nods.  
“We’re gonna make this work. We have to.” He nods, taking a deep breath and squeezing her hand, eyes firm on hers.  
“You know the plan.” She nods, squeezing back.  
“It’s gonna work.” She studies his eyes for a long moment. “I trust you.” He’s quiet for a moment, swallowing.  
“Let’s go.”

 

They get to the throne room with little interference. The Praetorian Guards are waiting--doubtless Snoke already knows they are coming. The red-clad soldiers silently lead them in to face their leader, the two standing tall in the face of all of the danger they’re walking into.

Snoke is seated on his throne, hunched slightly forward to watch them enter.  
“So you’ve come,” he drawls out, and Rey and Kylo take a breath in unison, letting the bond open wide between them. The Force swells around them, sings with power and energy, but they keep it subdued. For now. “What a miserable disappointment you’ve proven to be, Kylo Ren. No better than that foolish child, Ben Solo.” Kylo’s brow knits and his eyes harden.  
“Only to you, monster!” Rey’s voice rings out in the quiet room, echoing around them. She steps forward, glaring up at Snoke. “He was never a disappointment--he never will be! You tried to use him for his power, but _you_ were the fool, Snoke.” Rey’s eyes narrow and her voice is a snarl, “You’ll never use him again. Neither one of us.” Snoke rears forward and to his feet, staring the two of them down, and the room becomes suffocating, his sheer power overwhelming the both of them.  
“You think to destroy me, child--I feel it. Your rage fills you, just as it did that boy you protect!” He closes a fist at her and Rey stands tall in the wave of power he sends over her. “I feel it in you, girl--I feel your rage, your hatred, your _power_! I feel what you are!” Rey’s hands ball into fists and she bares her teeth at him, but Kylo moves to her side and snarls at his former master,  
“You have no idea what she is, what _we_ are!”

When the two of them each extend a hand out towards where the Praetorian Guards stand nearby, the atmosphere of the room _explodes_. Power is met with power, and the Force is a storm around all of them. The guards push back against gusts of Force energy rolling off the three in the center of the room, more than one of them stumbles. Snoke’s eyes narrow, and he lets out an angry roar, pushing at Rey and Kylo Ren with his energy, but when he looks to the Praetorian Guards, rather than advance on the pair in front of them, they turn on Snoke.

“Now!” Kylo’s voice is a furious roar, and immediately he and Rey are armed again. Their lightsabers fly from the belts of the Praetorian Guards and to their hands, and immediately the room is illuminated red and blue.  
“Insolence!” Snoke thunders as Rey and Kylo rush him in unison, their bodies in perfect sync. Their sabers arc together and they run, leap, swing as one unit. Snoke uses the pure Force to push them back, trying to separate them, trying to get them away from one another. He senses the power between them, seeks to weaken it. But even when he does get them away from one another, sends them flying back in two directions, they skid across the floor only to get back up and rush him from two directions.

Snoke’s put a barrier up around himself. The Force swirls and churns around him and deflects the blows of the Praetorian Guards, who are now speaking, shouting to Kylo and Rey.  
“He’s not going down easy!”  
“All together! Everyone strike at once!”  
Snoke shoves them back, however, snarling thunderously as he advances down from his throne and smashes Kylo Ren into one of the metal columns along the wall.  
“Traitors! Pathetic fools!” The guards fall over one another and scramble to get their footing again as Snoke targets Rey, extending a gnarled hand towards her.

Rey’s vision goes static. Her nerves are on fire, it feels like a vicegrip is clenching around her brain, her throat, her heart, but instead of pain or fear all she feels is _rage_. She screams against the pain and the grip on her throat, clenching her fists, her body stiff and immobile.

_I feel it in you, your rage, your anger, your raw strength!_

Rey pushes, fights against the pressure and the anger, against Snoke.

_Your anger makes you powerful, your rage gives you STRENGTH! Use it, strike down the boy and join me, scavenger—Rey…_

Rey lets out an unintelligible roar, struggling to reclaim herself. Her muscles strain and her body shakes with the effort, but slowly, slowly, her arms begin to move, her feet begin to part. But the dark feels so good, the anger is overtaking her and she feels the urge to fight, to kill...

_Rey!_

A voice. Many voices. Known and unknown, some unfamiliar. Leia. Her grandfather. And then…

Another body slides into hers—almost as she and Kylo have done so many times now in the bond. Hands clench hers into fists, flex the muscles, press against Snoke’s hold on her.

_We got this, Rey. Let’s show this old guy that sometimes a little anger is just fine!_

A man. Maybe slightly older than she herself—and she thinks, as they hold the brilliant blue lightsaber together, _he looks so much like Kylo_.

His hair is auburn, curling around his face and ears, and he wears the robes of an old Jedi. He has a smile on his face that’s clever and friendly all at once, and a scar—a scar that slices down through his right eyebrow and just below his eye. Rey moves with him, breaking the hold on her body and swinging the lightsaber, a smile lighting up her face at her own freedom. The man laughs, nodding and helping her into a firm stance, slicing aside a piece of metal piling Snoke has thrown at her. They lunge her body towards Snoke and his throne, but he moves—unnervingly quickly for a creature his age and size, and dodges them.

_Come on kid, we got him!_

_I’m not a kid!_ Rey is near to laughing, feeling a strange joy overcome her, and she knows it is her own and this man’s; she hears his thoughts as they attack Snoke and he is overjoyed to be helping her, to be fighting, to be holding this lightsaber again—

Snoke has withdrawn a lightsaber. It is old, strangely scintillant, like Kylo Ren’s. It glows and crackles as a fire might, burning a deep, dark red instead of the bright red of Kylo’s sword. The handle is gold and gleams in the light like Snoke’s robes. He is coming at Rey now, quick and precise, and it is all she and her strange companion can do to hold him off.  
_He’s a real piece of work--_ the man grunts as she and he block blows from the burning red sword. Finally they manage a Force-push and get some distance from him, but there is a strange dizzy sensation in Rey’s head and she loses focus for a moment, enough to give Snoke opportunity to rush her again with a gleeful bark of laughter.  
_Shit--!_  
_Oh hell--_  
The two react a moment too late, but Kylo Ren is there, beating Snoke back, away from Rey, merciless and furious. He hacks at Snoke’s lightsaber as if he’s in one of his berserking ‘tantrums’ as Rey called them, but this is _brutal_. Even Snoke looks frustrated, trying to find an opening against his former pupil.  
_Now--go now, help Ben!_  
And then Rey is alone in her body again, but she feels the bond, feels the pull to her other half, and she rushes back into battle, the Praetorian Guards at her back. The group of them attack Snoke from all sides until finally he’s unable to fend them all off at once; his defenses go down and Rey leaps from the group, springs into the air at Snoke with a roar and catches him across the chest with her lightsaber.

Things seem to slow down. Snoke pitches backwards with a guttural cry and Kylo Ren rushes in after Rey, slicing Snoke again, creating an ‘x’ of blows with Rey and knocking Snoke’s lightsaber from his hand. The creature does the only thing he has left--he lashes out at them with the Force.

 

The two of them are slammed into the ground and Snoke grabs onto their minds the moment there is a wavering in their link together.

The dark closes in around them and everything is freezing, the cold burning their skin, but they are separated somehow. Kylo Ren whirls around in the dark to try and find Rey and is met with the greyed face of his father, hand still outstretched as it was the last moment he saw him.  
“ _You can’t go back, Ben. There’s no goin' back from this, son.”_ The ghost shakes his head sadly, and Kylo’s brow knits as he backs away.  
“No. You knew--you knew, I felt it in you. You’re not real. My father is dead and gone.” His voice is bitter and his eyes are cold, and there is a hand on his shoulder.  
_“You took him from me, Ben. You took away the only man I ever loved. We wanted you to come back so we could be a family again…”_ He rounds on the distraught face of his mother, and backs away from her now.  
“No! And you--you betrayed me! You betrayed _Rey_ , you imprisoned her, your men _hurt_ her!” He snarls, but his voice cracks while faced with Leia’s teary eyes. Leia advances on him, however, making him back up towards his strange spectral father, and now they are joined by some version of his uncle.  
_“You took her away from us, too. Away from the Resistance, from her home, from her family, her friends. You caused her so much pain. You put her in that detention cell, she was a prisoner because of_ **_you_** _.”_  
Kylo looks a bit stricken here, feeling guilt flare up in his gut. No...no, that wasn’t true--but…

Somewhere far-off, Rey is screaming, sobbing. Kylo’s head whips around to try and find the source, but he sees only darkness, only shadows.  
“Rey!” He screams back into the dark helplessly, but there is no reply, nothing in sight. His ghostly family closes in around him, and beyond their shoulders he can see forms in the dark, men and women, their eyes hollow and accusing. Luke stares hard at his nephew, his voice cold.  
_“You don’t deserve that girl. You never have. The bond you have with her is a mistake, one that should be broken and cut off!”_ The strange bodies beyond them draw closer and closer to them, and Kylo Ren feels trapped, anxious, afraid. Alone.  
“No! The bond isn’t a mistake--Rey!” He screams out into the dark for her. “Rey! I’m coming for you, Rey, I’m coming!” he tries to wrestle past his family, and they are unnaturally strong.  
_“You don’t deserve her!”_  
_“She can never love you, not after what you’ve done!”_ _  
“Let her go, let her live her life as she was meant to--without you and the darkness you bring her!”_

 

Rey is alone in the dark. She can hear voices and sounds and feel ghostly blows of long-gone hands. Memories crash in on her like angry waves and she struggles to breathe, crying with the reminder of old hurt, and old fear, and old sadness. Everyone leaves her, everyone is taken away from her in the end.  
_“He’ll leave you too, stupid girl!”_ An old voice, a long-gone predator. Her own childish voice screaming again, struggling to chase a ship that would not return.  
_“Come back! Come back! Don’t leave me!”_  
_“No one’s coming back for you, you dumb child--no one cares about a scavenger!”_ More of them, old words, old blows. The voice, that voice.  
_“I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise. Stay here--I’ll come back for you!”_ But she grasps at hands she cannot feel or hold onto. More voices, more memories. Her eyes are full of tears that sting and burn. _No, please don't go, please don't leave me, please--_  
_“You’ll be alone again before long, and when you are…”_ Rey sobs, wracked with pain and the memories of her own weakness, and long-ago terrors.  
“ _REY!!”_  
Amidst the churning sea of emotions and strange, spectral hands, Rey tries to look for him.  
“Kylo! Kylo where--where _are_ you?!” She is desperate and afraid, confronted with her fears.

There is nothing, though. Nothing but darkness and old memories around her. Kylo Ren is nowhere to be seen.  
“ _Looking for someone again, girl?”_ The derisive voice of Unkar Plutt. _“No one is coming back for you, not this time!”_  
“No!” She wails, tears streaming down her face. “No! You’re wrong! He wouldn’t leave me behind!” She looks around wildly, “Kylo! Kylo _please_ , where are you?!”

_“...Stop now, come back! Come back--I…”_

A woman’s voice, deeply sad, and choked with tears. It fades, and Rey cannot hear the rest.

Things go still, the moment she speaks. The darkness around Rey shudders and encompasses the visions she’s seeing until she feels blind; and she takes a deep breath, trying to steady her heart and stop crying, but there is only silence.  
“Kylo! Kylo, where are you?!” She’s crying out again, trying to feel her way around. It feels like she is suspended in something viscous and thick, like she is swimming and suspended in some strange black liquid, alone, and--  
A hand takes hers, and Rey freezes.

The dark is illuminated by a woman in blue, with pale white flowers in her hair.

Rey’s breath is gone, held in her throat as she stares. She knows this woman. She has seen her before, many, many times. She clasps Rey’s hand, and her sad eyes tell her to be silent, and follow.  
Rey drifts along with the beautiful spirit, tears stinging her eyes, until they stop, and her companion lifts a softly glowing hand to rest on something solid in front of them, as if there is a wall in the inky black. Slowly, a glow spreads from her palm, and there, gradually coming into sight is Kylo Ren, who stares in silent shock at the two women appearing before him. Rey lets out a strangled gasp, something relieved and joyous, and rushes past the Blue Woman to Kylo, who surges forward to clasp her in a tight embrace, holding her head to his.  
“Rey--Rey, Rey, Rey…” He says her name like it’s the only thing keeping her here, holding her close. Rey holds onto him tightly, eyes clenched shut.  
“I knew, I knew, I waited for you--”

“You two can’t rest long here.”

The voice catches them both by surprise and they look up, Kylo Ren turning around to face the same man who stepped into Rey’s body and helped her break free from Snoke’s hold. His eyes are wide and his mouth is dry, and Rey feels his hands tremble as he slowly turns to face the Force ghost. The other man just gives them a lopsided smile, apologetic and soft.  
“I’m sorry--but you two have something you have to finish. You can’t rest yet.” He slowly strides towards them, eyes lifting to gaze at the Blue Woman behind them, watching her for a long, silent moment. Rey steps forward, swallowing a little and offering him the smallest smile.  
“You helped me, before. You helped me get free.” She looks down at the empty palm of her leading hand, and the man nods, smile widening.  
“Well, it was good to feel that saber in my hands again. It’s been a long time.” He turns his gaze to Kylo now, and his smile fades just slightly. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you for a long, long time.” He reaches out a hand to rest on Kylo’s arm, just below his shoulder. “You kept me out for a long time, Ben. Kylo. I know the naming is hard.” Kylo swallows and Rey feels so, so much swelling up in him as he faces this man.  
“You’re--you’re here now.” Kylo’s voice shakes so much Rey fears it might break. The ghost nods.  
“I am. I’m here because you’re letting me in, because you and Rey here are ready. Because you’re learning things. You’re understanding things.” He looks at the Blue Woman sadly, “Things I learned far too late.” Rey looks back at the other woman, and her eyes are all for the other man, gazing at him silent and gentle. “But right now, you two aren’t safe. You gotta finish this fight, you gotta see this through.”

The strange blackness around them starts to shiver, and Rey takes Kylo’s hand quickly, holding it tight. She nods, brow setting, and Kylo keeps staring at the man in front of them.  
“I always asked for your help, for you to show me the way. I wanted to understand what you did, I wanted to know what to do so that I could...could manage what you didn’t. To really change things.” The ghost nods sadly.  
“I know. I could hear you, but…” He shakes his head, “You weren’t ready yet. You are now. Do you think so?” Kylo takes a shuddering breath, glancing at Rey and finally nodding, turning back to him again.  
“I’m ready now.” The ghost nods, smiling at him and taking his hand away. The darkness is starting to fade somehow.  
“Then I’ll be here.” Kylo Ren grips Rey’s hand tightly and he gives a determined nod first to the man, and then a bow of his head to the woman.  
“Thank you, grandfather, grandmother."

 

They’re thrust back into the physical world roughly and abruptly, and somehow only moments have passed. They rouse from their stupor, and look around until they see one another--and then they turn to Snoke. He’s breathing hard and bleeding, dark and vile. They push against his Force barrage, and when the creature sees that he’s being bested, he panics. Rey and Kylo are nearly through his press of energy, and suddenly there’s a strong blast of power, and they’re all slammed back as far across the room as possible, Rey, Kylo Ren, and the guards together hit the far wall and Snoke rushes away, towards the back of the throne room and out of sight. The guards are all trying to get to their feet, shouting frantically.  
“He’s running!”  
“Get up--hurry, _hurry_ , he’s going to escape--”  
“Someone stop the fuckin' bastard!”  
“Kylo! You two have to stop him before he gets out of here!” Only all of the voices are shouting at once, and all of them are disoriented from their impact into the wall--and before they can all get to their feet to give chase, Rey and Kylo Ren feel Snoke’s presence departing.  
“Fuck!” Kylo slams a fist into the wall, the blow echoing off the metal. Rey’s anger manifests in the form of columns beginning to shudder and crumple, but the red-clad guards are getting up quickly and heading for the exit, waving the other two along.  
“We have to get out of here, now. Snoke’s gone, the troopers are gonna come pouring in here now.”  
“We have to go after Snoke!” Rey snarls, turning in the same direction the wounded monster left in, but Kylo grabs her wrist.  
“There’s no going after him that way. They’re right, we have to get out before we’re caught again.” He takes her hand, eyes firmly on hers. “I’m not letting them put you in a cell again. Not you, not me, not both of us.” Rey takes a breath and lets out an angry, frustrated exhale, nodding finally and moving with Kylo and the guards.  
“Fine-- _fine_ , let’s get out--we’ll get a ship…”

They’re all running now. Alarms are going off over the massive ship, now that Snoke’s left. The guards stand out the most, but manage to help cloak Rey and Kylo from sight as they all hurry to find a shuttle to escape in. The hangar is abuzz, announcements going over the speakers, and TIE fighters are taking off in rapid succession. Finding a shuttle is not going to be easy, and when they linger just a moment too long in the hangar trying to figure out if one ship within distance is going to fit them all, they’re spotted, and a squad of Stormtroopers is rushing at them, blasters firing.  
“Go! Doesn’t matter, we’ll fit! Go, go!”

It’s a standard cargo transport shuttle. The controls are standard-issue, and Rey immediately deposits herself in the pilot’s seat, but Kylo tries to push her out.  
“I’m flying, you’re hurt.” Rey looks stunned, making a disbelieving noise and jamming the pilot’s headset on her ears.  
“You’re absolutely not flying! We don’t even have guns on this ship, _I_ can get us out of this corner of the galaxy faster than you could get us out of this hangar!” Kylo’s eyes widen and he argues back, shoving himself into the co-pilot’s seat and taking the second set of controls and the headset, speedily getting things set for launch to try and outdo her.  
“I’ve been flying for years longer than you have--I think I could get us out of here faster than that. _And_ without damage!” Rey’s already got her side prepped for launch, though.  
“You talk big for someone who crashed not that long ag--”  
“Can you two _please_ fight about this when we’re off this fucking ship and _not about to be murdered_?!”

Getting out of the hangar proves….trying. The blaster bolts aren’t doing much, so they manage to skid out past the Stormtroopers on foot, but the airlock is being closed to prevent them from leaving, and TIE fighters are screaming around them trying to hit the cargo ship on its way out. In the end they take some damage and everyone aboard is reeling and fighting back some flight-nausea, but they manage to hit lightspeed and zip out fast enough to avoid worse damage.

Once the blinding white light of their hyperspace channel envelops the ship, Rey and Kylo take off their headsets and slump in their seats some, looking up at one another quietly after a long moment.  
They’re alive.  
Snoke’s escaped.  
They’re alive, and running again.

 

In the cargo hold, they face the Praetorian Guards finally. The small group of soldiers is starting to throw off the red armor, and slowly, their helmets come off.  
“Hate this fucking armor…” The voice modulator shuts off halfway through ‘this’ and the helmet is tossed aside, revealing a ruddy-skinned male Nautolan. He shakes his head-tendrils out some, and kicks the helmet across the cargo hold to a far corner.  
“You and me both.” comes a dry response from what’s revealed to be a tall Zabrak female, her skin in tones of brown and yellow, one of her set of primary horns cracked off. Three more helmets come off--a pale human male with sunken eyes and choppy, short, brown hair, a Twi’lek female with deep, dark blue skin, her lekku wrapped around her neck, her eyes bright yellow, and a Rodian male, green skin looking a little more pale than usual. They grumble and gripe about how uncomfortable things were until the last of the guards unmasks themselves, silencing them.  
“You’re all quick to talk--could be worse for you womp rats.” The small helmet was hiding a female Togruta: her skin is pale lilac and her montrals are banded in patterns of white that turn to a sunny yellow near the tips of her horns and ends of her lekku. Her face is marked in white with that same pale yellow staining the end of her nose and her cheeks. She turns to Rey and Kylo Ren, and her eyes are a bright, vibrant yellow-orange. She looks at Kylo Ren, and her gaze is respectful, her words trying for some kind of mood elevation.  
“Well...that could have gone worse.”

The others seem to sag a bit, looking at the ground, and Rey steps forward, but Kylo cuts her off, moving to stand in front of the Togruta girl.  
“Jahlo--”  
“No.” the answer is quick, and the girl shakes her head, following up without pause, “No. I’m not--I’m done with that. My name’s Nuaala, you still remember it. We all do.” She looks around at the others, who look up at Kylo Ren silently, tired and worn down but still defiant. “We know...we understand. But...we’re taking our names back.” She turns to Rey now, offering a handshake. “My name is Nuaala Vo.” Rey’s a little taken aback by this, but nods, and takes the handshake.  
“I’m Rey.” Nuaala gives her a little smirk.  
“We know who you are,” to which Rey looks a little amused, flicking a glance over to Kylo as Nuaala turns to the others, “And this pack of mynocks is Ran Mirtho,” the Nautolan gives a small incline of his head towards her, “Solea,” The Zabrak girl nods quietly, “Deneos Gavron and Asteria Nyxos,” The human and Twi’lek look up at her, “and Leeno Rott.” The Rodian nods at her, giving a small wave of one gloved hand. Rey nods, looking them all over.  
“I’m glad I can finally meet all of you.”  The Rodian, Leeno, nods.  
“Good to meet you, too. We’ve all heard about you--” Kylo Ren shoots him a look over Rey’s shoulder, and Asteria casts a doleful look around the group, stopping at Kylo again.  
“She knows by now, she has to. She knows who _we_ are--”  
“Who we _were,_ ” Nuaala cuts her off quickly, harshly. Asteria pauses, then nods slowly, exhaling quietly. Nuaala folds her arms over her chest. “We are not _them_ anymore.” She turns to Kylo Ren again, “Those names are not ours anymore. We’re not going back to that, Kylo.”

Kylo steps forward, however, facing them.  
“Rey and I need your help. Whatever you are now, whoever you are, we still need your help. Snoke is still out there.” Solea sighs, gesturing aggravatedly with one hand and flopping back against the side of the cargo hold, her body making a hollow metallic sound echo through the small space.  
“So we’re going on some wild bantha chase with you and her to find the same fucking monster we just got _away_ from?” Rey steps up next to Kylo, feeling his anger spiking.  
“We’re asking you to stay, to help us. Snoke is a threat to the entire galaxy--even if you get away from him, can you live with it knowing you’re leaving him to run free?”  
“If it means we’re all still alive…” Deneos looks away, and Asteria gets up from her seat beside him, looking shocked.  
“ _Den!_ ”  
“What kind of life are we living if we’re just running from him?”  Ran looks up at the party from his seat on one of the metal cargo shelves. “We run, and leave him alive, we’re never safe.” Asteria nods, looking from Ran to the others.  
“Ran’s right! I’m not doing that, I’m not living the rest of my life in fear!” She crosses the hold to stand closer to Rey and Kylo. “I’m going. I’m seeing this through.” Ran nods his head.  
“So am I.” Nuaala takes a deep breath, looking around at the others.  
“So? The rest of you?” Leeno stands a little straighter, nodding towards Rey and Kylo.  
“I’m with them.” Solea looks from Deneos to Nuaala and sighs, frowning and shrugging sharply.  
“Fine. I’m not thrilled with this, but fine.” Nuaala takes a few steps towards Deneos, looking down at him.  
“Are you coming with us?” Leeno shakes his head.  
“If not I say we drop him at the closest ‘port.” Asteria frowns at the Rodian and turns to Deneos again.  
“Come on, Den. We have to help them, we helped cause all of these problems.” Ran takes a deep breath, nodding and sighing quietly.  
“We are responsible for a great deal of pain and suffering in the galaxy, and that creature held our leashes.”

Deneos looks up at Nuaala, and then to the others.  
“He’s not going to die easy. Even Mas--even Kylo Ren couldn’t take him down, with that girl helping him. They’re more powerful than anyone I’ve ever met, and he’s still. Alive.” the human boy is afraid, his voice bitter. Rey steps to join Nuaala, but she bends down some. Deneos looks so much younger than the others, this close, and she shakes her head slightly.  
“Deneos, Snoke can be killed. He’s strong, but he’s not invincible. Kylo and I felt it,” she glances back at Kylo, “And if you all help us again, we can do this. We can take Snoke out. We can _end_ this.” Deneos looks up at Nuaala now.  
“This is it, then, right? Even if we do this, we’re not--” Nuaala’s eyes are hard, and she nods firmly.  
“No matter what we do, we will _never_ be the Knights of Ren again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so who else is ready for the last jedi to come out?
> 
>  
> 
> also! please go check out [this gorgeous fanart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12993993) for Bond that was done by the absolutely _amazing_ [minty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mechante_minty/pseuds/Mechante_minty)!!  
>  give her some kudos, this was such a fantastically sweet thing to do! thank you again, bb!! ♡♡♡


	32. Signal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recuperation.   
> Tension. Distress. _A signal..._

“Why are we landing?”   
  
Rey blinks out of meditation with Kylo Ren, calling to Leeno and Asteria in the cockpit of the small shuttle. Asteria turns around in her chair to look at Rey as she replies,   
“We’re making planetfall for supplies.” She gives a nod to something behind them, and looks up as Nuaala steps up behind the two seated Force-users.   
“We need supplies, some new clothing…” She glances around, “And a new ship.” Kylo looks a little less-than-enthused about this, but nods in agreement. Rey looks around them some, getting to her feet.   
“If we can get somewhere that I can tinker...we can get enough out of this thing to get two ships, at least.” She notices a First Order insignia on one of the crates near them, “And we can avoid questions if we just tear it apart.” Nuaala folds her arms over her chest, raising a brow.   
“Where do you suggest we scrap this thing? We go to Jakku and I guarantee we’ll be found.” Kylo Ren is the one to speak up now.   
“The Ring of Kafrene. We can deal with traders there, and get information.” Rey and Nuaala turn to look at him in unison.   
“Kafrene?”   
“It’s in the Expansion Region. In an asteroid belt--tough landing but if we can get there we can find what we need.” Rey’s silent for a long moment, studying him quietly, but Nuaala nods as Ran’s voice comes from nearby,   
“And we can hide.”

The others turn to look at him, sitting next to Leeno, who’s running a scan through the ship’s computer system.   
“We might need to hide out a while, guys,” Leeno tosses over his shoulder, “Looks like there’s a hefty bounty out on our new girl here.” Rey blinks as the others turn to look at her.   
“Who--me?” Ran nods, sitting back, tossing a mini-link to her that clicks on in her hands, displaying a holoscreen. Rey looks down at her own face on the screen, and feels stunned. Kylo leans next to her to look, and the others look from the two of them back to Leeno.   
“Resistance put out...looks like it’s gone up--wooooo…” The Rodian lets out a startled whistling noise, shaking his head, “Gone up eighty thousand in the last two weeks!” Rey stares, stunned, at the notice.   
  
**_Wanted ALIVE by THE GALACTIC RESISTANCE_ **

They put a bounty out on her. She feels her mouth go dry, and Kylo takes the mini-link from her, nearly crushing it in his palm until she puts a hand on his wrist to stop him.   
“A  _ bounty?!” _ He hisses angrily, and Solea puts a hand to her head, heaving a hard sigh.   
“Every lowlife in the galaxy is gonna be after that girl. A hundred-thirty thousand? That’s big change now…” Rey looks deep in thought about this, and feels Kylo’s arm tight around her.   
“They’d be fools to come after all of us.” Nuaala shakes her head.   
“That’s a nice thought, but I can’t say I really feel like fending off every hunter in the universe, Kylo.”   
“So what  _ are _ you saying, then?” His tone is low, almost a growl, and full of warning. Asteria steps up next to Nuaala,   
“She’s not saying anything like that.”   
“Maybe we should cash in on it.”

The ship goes silent, but when they turn it was _Rey_ who said this in the first place. Kylo looks stunned and then immediately angry.   
“We’re not turning you back over to them, not after this! They put a  _ bounty  _ out on you, I’m never letting them _touch_ you again--” Rey shakes her head.   
“No, I don’t plan on going back there now. But they need to understand we’re not against them.” Ran’s eyes narrow slightly.   
“Aren’t we?” Rey shakes her head again.   
“They’re not our enemy.” Solea regards her through narrow eyes herself now.   
“I don’t know much about you or who your personal enemies are, but anybody that throws me in a cell and puts a bounty on my head when I get out is an enemy of mine.” Rey lowers her gaze some.   
“They’re protecting themselves. What they’re doing isn’t always right, but they want to help the galaxy.” Nuaala is quiet for a long moment, mulling this all over.   
“Let's get some information first. We need to find out what we're facing right now before we walk into something incredibly stupid.”   
  


They settle back in for the flight, and Rey sits with Kylo near a piling of crates.   
“Kafrene?” She asks gently, and he manages a nod, eyes focused ahead of himself.   
“Yeah.” Rey nods a little now herself.   
“You think we’ll be safe there for a while?” He wraps an arm around her and they settle back.   
“I think we’ll be able to hide for a few days, and get some new transportation and food.”  _ You need rest. _ __   
**_We_ ** _ need rest,  _ she corrects him,  _ it’s been a long...long few weeks.  _ Her voice is suddenly so weary, and he turns to press a kiss to the top of her hair.   
__ Yeah. It really has been.

 

Sleep is not all that they need it to be.   
Rey is faced with endless sand and heat, voices calling to her from a distance. She runs and runs, feels sweat pour down her face and tears sting her eyes, blinding her in the beating sunlight, but never seems to get any further.   
Kylo Ren is faced with his own past. Fire, the smell of blood. Black fabric whipping thunderously in the wind and cold everywhere, freezing him through his bones. The sickening green glow of a lightsaber.   
But the bond has grown only stronger now. Rey stops her running when she hears the hiss and hum of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. Kylo Ren stops fighting when he hears Rey’s frenzied breathing in his ear. They turn, face each other in their dreams, the two strange scenes converging into one, the rain and fire and sun and sand falling away to nothing but stars, the Force ebbing it all away. They limp to one another at the center of it, and breathlessly they fall to their knees together, exhaling in weary relief. There are no words exchanged. No excess of touch or movement or affection, now. They are more tired than they have ever been--even in sleep there is little escape for them now. They hold one another in the safety of their shared ground, and try to rest a little while.

 

Rey wakes first. She’s always been an early-riser, and even now as her muscles ache and her bones protest, she stretches and moves carefully to let Kylo remain sleeping so that she can get up.  She’s still tired. She feels it: this is exhaustion, and it’s running deep; but she is awake now and sleep will come again.   
She wanders to the cockpit, where she finds Ran and Nuaala at the controls, in quiet conversation until they see her. The blurred streaks of hyperspace light flick past them through the viewport and Nuaala flicks on a small overhead light, motioning for Rey to come in, she and Ran both removing their headsets.    
“Are you all right?” Ran is the one to speak first, tilting his head slightly as he regards her through large, black eyes. Rey lets out a long exhale, nodding a bit.   
“Tired. But I’ll be all right.” She leans against the doorway before adding another little nod, “Thank you.” Nuaala watches her quietly, appraisingly.   
“You’ll need more rest. We’ll stay a day or two on Kafrene once we reach the belt.” Rey turns to look at her, but the look on the Togruta’s face silences any argument she might have.   
“...Right.” Nuaala tilts her horned head some, looking Rey over.   
“You’ve been through a great deal. Your body is still processing and filtering it all; I doubt you’ve been so intoxicated before, let alone for such an extended period of time.” Rey’s quiet for a long moment. Of course they all know what happened. She nods, running her tongue over her lips. No use in being mum with these people, though that was easier anyway, she supposed.   
“No, I haven’t.” Nuaala nods some.   
“And I’m sure you’re exhausted from the physical exertion.” She turns then to Ran, nodding at the doorway. “See if there are any vitapacks on board, would you? Asteria is asleep, I don’t think she finished stock.” Ran nods, gets up without hesitation, and exits, leaving the two women alone. Nuaala nods at Ran’s empty seat, and Rey sits, regarding the other woman curiously.   
“You’re their leader now, huh?” Nuaala takes a long breath, shrugging some.   
“I was...I was the second in command. If Kylo Ren was our master, then I was his immediate subordinate. The chain of command was...not all so clear, but now…” She looks back towards the doorway, towards the hold where the others sleep. “...Now, some of us are still lost. We had roles to play, duties, identities. Even if they were not 'good', they were who we were. And now…”   
“Now there’s just...nothing,” Rey supplies quietly. Nuaala meets her eyes, nodding, slumping forward to rest her elbows on her knees.   
“Now we’re just adrift. We have to figure out what we’re going to be, now. Until there’s complete independence…” Rey nods, understanding. She thinks of Asteria’s hesitation, of Deneos’ eyes, the fear and the confusion. They still need some sort of guidance. Rey understands that all too well.

Nuaala turns back to her after a moment, however.  
“You need more rest. Vitamins. Probably more water than we can ration you on board right now.” She settles back in her seat again, “And probably some contra meds wouldn’t hurt.” Rey blinks.  
“I--” She realizes she has no idea what that means, what that would entail. Exhaustion she understands. Dehydration, hunger, vitamin deficiency. Being hungry, going without...she knows these things. But now…  
There is an ache in her thighs, still a soreness between her legs, now that she’s been still for so long. She is more aware of the bruises on her body than before, and the wound on her shoulder is more painful than she remembers. If she focuses, she can feel her body slowly trying to regroup, but it is slow, too slow, and she knows it needs assistance. Kylo can’t be much different. They need medicine to help, this time. The Force cannot do everything.  
Rey swallows some, shaking her head a little and looking up at Nuaala again.  
“What...what are ‘contra meds’?” Nuaala’s golden eyes widen some and she blinks at Rey, brow knitting.  
“...What? Contraception medicine--” Rey’s blank expression makes her shake her head, but she is more patient than Rey expects. “Contraceptives. ‘Contras’ is what most call them, or ‘c’s’. Not hard to come by. There are all sorts--they ensure there’s no child later if you’re fucking anyone.” Rey’s used to much more shyness from women about this sort of thing, and Nuaala’s blunt answer is...it’s a relief. She nods.  
“Oh.” The full weight of it sinks in, and Rey sags in her seat a little. She can still remember what the medtechs were saying--that there was some sort of ‘implant’ in her, that her hormones were being blocked, that _that_ was why she’d never had to worry about… “Contraceptives...what...what do they do?” Nuaala shrugs lightly.  
“If there’s anything trying to start, it stops. No pain if you’re quick about taking something, just maybe some unpleasant discharge later, depending on how long it’s been.” Rey takes a deep breath. How long has it been? Not _too_ long since the last time...but what about the times before that? She thinks back to the small, cold, metal room, how hazy she felt from the drugs and the burn of Kylo Ren’s slick skin on hers, the cool metal under them, the bright lights and the feeling of being filled until she could feel it on her thighs, hot and viscous and _vital_ \--

As if she can sense all of it, Nuaala cuts her off.   
“Do you feel different?”   
Rey looks up at her, uncertain and almost afraid.   
“What?” Nuaala’s eyes are faraway.   
“Do you feel different?” she repeats, “Do you feel...do you feel like you’re yourself, but there’s _more_?” Rey feels so much weight in this question, and takes a breath, focusing. She feels herself. Feels her own energy, something that concentrates in her skin and tries to heal her wounds, something pooling in her belly as if orbiting a hollow place...but nothing different. She shakes her head.   
“I don’t….I don’t think there’s...anything.” It feels choked out, the reality of it hitting her hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. There’s nothing. She hasn’t conceived.   
Rey brings tired hands to her face and cries, and Nuaala sits back and nods to herself, letting the other girl have space.

When Ran gets back to the cockpit, he’s got a meager pack in his hands, shaking his head.   
“This is all I could find. The ship must have been fresh back from a run.” Rey’s eyes are red-rimmed and she’s still bleary, but no longer sobbing as she was. Nuaala nods, taking the pack and handing it to Rey.   
“Go take a swallow of water and get these down. They’ll help until we can land.” Rey takes the pack, silently considering Kylo as well, and Nuaala shakes her head.   
“You need these a little more. Let him sleep.” She’s quiet for a moment but then nods, getting up silently and heading back into the cargo hold. Ran takes her seat, looking at Nuaala quietly before the Togruta shakes her head some and runs a hand back over her montrals, exhaling a long, quiet breath. It’s a small gesture, one barely noticed, but between their seats, Ran rests a hand on Nuaala’s arm without a word.

 

Kylo’s jolted awake later on by the ship pitching and shifting, instinctively grabbing Rey and holding onto her, immediately alert. He remembers where they are and sits up, dragging Rey’s still-sleeping form with him, looking around the hold.    
“What’s going on?” He demands, and Solea rolls her eyes nearby.   
“Nuaala and Leeno are piloting. We’re heading through the asteroid field to get to the outpost.” Kylo relaxes slightly, settling back against the wall and keeping Rey in his arms, but she starts to stir more when they hit another patch of something like turbulence.   
“Mmmn…” She looks confused, shifting on Kylo until she can sit up and jerks a bit when they swerve to miss something. “Shit--what the hell is going on out there?” Kylo shakes his head.   
“Asteroid field. We’ll be fine.” She takes a breath, yawning and settling in next to him, glancing around at Solea and then Asteria and Deneos nearby meditating. Solea shakes her head.   
“Deneos is not fond of space travel,” she sounds like this is an old problem, and Asteria shakes her head, not bothering to even open her eyes.   
“Nobody likes asteroids, Sol.” Solea rolls her eyes.   
“I like cowards less.” Deneos seems to shrink some at this and Asteria takes a deep breath.   
“I like your tone less than that.” Solea’s brow knits and Rey glances at Kylo some as if expecting him to stop them, but he’s sitting back without a care.   
“You protect him too much, Asteria. As if he didn’t come with the rest of us, as if he wasn’t a Knight like the rest of us.”   
“None of us are knights, now.”   
“No, but that doesn’t erase what we’ve done, does it?”   
“I like how tiresome you two are being much less than asteroids,” comes Ran’s even voice from nearby, and Solea shoots him a dirty look.   
“‘Tiresome’--”   
“At least wait until we are off this ship to have your squabble.”

Rey looks mildly concerned about their arguing.   
_ Are they...always like this? _ __   
_ And worse, _ Kylo sounds thoroughly unaffected.   
_ Why don’t you stop them? _ __   
_ What would that solve?  _ Rey raises an eyebrow.   
_ Their argument, for one. _ __   
__ Would it? They’d stop fighting but then be angry later. Doesn’t matter. Let them have it out and then move on.   
For the first time, Rey finds herself wondering just what kind of a leader he made.

 

Kafrene is bustling with traffic--foot traffic, slow-moving land speeders, animals...it seems like too little space for too many bodies. More busy and crowded than Coruscant, if possible, and built like the lower-levels of that planet-encompassing metropolis. Rey is not sure what she thinks of this place.   
They stay in groups of two and three to attract less attention. Kylo is irate about not staying with Rey, but Nuaala and Leeno lead her off through the crowds.   
“If we’re caught, any hunters will be looking for  _ both _ of you,” Ran warns. “And if you’re both taken in, you’ll have even less chance of being able to help her, or she to help you.” He’s right, however, and Kylo and Ran follow behind Rey and the others. Asteria and Deneos go to find clothing, and Solea goes alone to find what information she can about the Resistance and the bounties.

Nuaala and Leeno walk with Rey through the crowds, the three of them taking care not to look around or jostle anyone more than they need to. They’re headed for the junk corners, ready to dicker with the traders there. Rey knows what she’s doing with that, at least.   
“We need to separate again,” Nuaala keeps her voice down, “We’ll find at least two ships.”   
“I’m staying with him when we leave here,” Rey says firmly. “I understand wanting to split up, I think it’s a good idea. But he and I have more to do.” Leeno shakes his head some, but sounds more amused than anything.   
“Boy he found a real handful, huh…” Nuaala gives him a look, but Rey snorts, grinning.   
“So did I.”

 

Lodging is not the easiest to come by. Most places here are full up, and more still are crawling with bounty hunters. Ran has the two of them pause to take a break and think, and Kylo shakes his head.   
“Hopefully they’ll have found a ship. We can just get off this rock if we’ve got transport.”   
“And float until someone finds us? We need rest, Kylo.” Kylo Ren’s dark eyes flick to Ran’s face, but the Nautolan doesn’t budge. “We can’t keep going like this if we want to outrun anyone. Even before, we all knew we needed time to rest, to keep our strength up. And the girl…” Ran takes a small breath, recalling what little he caught of the conversation between she and Nuaala. “The girl needs rest. So do you.” Kylo can’t argue with him on that.

Hours later, Rey contacts Kylo through the bond.   
_ This has been a real hassle. I didn’t anticipate needing to tear so much apart. _ Kylo snaps to attention as Ran is dealing with a trader about food.   
_ Is everything all right?  _ He’s there with her in an instant, and finds she and Leeno standing over a pile of torn-out parts while Nuaala talks with a small group of traders. Rey shakes her head slightly, still keeping conversation nonverbal.   
_ Fine, we’ve just had to cut deals with about seven people by now. We’ve got a ship, though. _ He raises an eyebrow, looking around.   
_ ‘A’ ship? _ __   
_ That’s all we could manage. All we could get around here. But it’s more than enough; First Order tech is going high. We managed to get a good deal on everything.  _ She sounds optimistic, at least, and he sighs a bit. __  
You did better than Ran and I. We couldn’t find anywhere to stay--I hope this ship of yours is big enough for us to sleep.  Rey nods some.   
_ And then some. It’s an old leisure cruiser that’s been modified some; we’ll be fine.  _ He nods slowly.   
__ Ran and I are getting rations. Tell us when it’s clear and we’ll meet you at the ship.

 

Black-chromed and streamlined, the ship is an old cruiser that was clearly once luxury-line but fell into very different hands. Called the _Dark Comet_ , it’s spacious enough for all of them and more: two separate crew quarters, a cockpit nearly the size of a proper bridge, two escape pods, and a docking bay for a smaller ship if not two personal craft—even if it’s not ideal conditions. Leeno still thinks they need to split up, but Nuaala assures them all this should be fine for now. They go over rations and the clothing Asteria and Deneos have brought back, and Solea regroups with them with news that apparently the Resistance base on D’Qar has been destroyed.   
“Word’s circulating that the rebels got out on shuttles, but the base is gone. The First Order took out the entire thing with a dreadnought. There was a firefight--apparently the dreadnought got taken out, but the rebels are running now.” Rey’s face goes a bit pale.   
“They managed to escape?” Solea nods.   
“Sounds like. But if the First Order is hot on their tail, they won’t get far.” Nuaala takes a deep breath.   
“Do we know what ships are out?” Solea shakes her head.   
“No word on that. I heard chatter there are star destroyers, but that’s nothing new. If they took out the dread, the Order’s gonna be pissed enough to run them down. Can’t imagine Hux taking that one on the nose.” Kylo looks thoughtful about all of this, and Rey’s brow knits.   
“They must have somewhere to go, now. There are allies--the Resistance still has allies, they’ll be able to keep running, and hide--” Ran takes a breath.   
“If they can outrun the First Order, at least.” Nuaala’s mouth is a thin line.   
“They might not be that lucky, as things are going.” Everyone turns to look at her now, and the Togruta shakes her head slowly. “Unless they’ve got an unlimited fuel supply, they’re going to need somewhere to hunker down, and reinforcements, and that’s if, only if, the Supremacy isn’t on them.” Kylo Ren stares at her for a long moment.   
“...They finished it.” He sounds slightly defeated. She nods.   
“They finished. It’s live, and I can guarantee they’ll be using it to run the Resistance down before turning on us, next.” Rey’s brow furrows.   
“What’s live? What did they finish?” Asteria sighs.   
“An active tracker. It’s a way to track a ship through hyperspace.” Rey’s eyes widen.   
“I thought that was impossible!” Asteria shakes her head.   
“Not impossible. If you can amp up any active tracker to broaden the scale of it, you can lock onto one object in particular and follow it. Right now, it’s only running aboard the Supremacy.” Rey’s eyes study hers.   
“...The ship we were just on. The ship we just escaped from.” Asteria looks down, nodding, and Nuaala nods as well.   
“Yes.” Rey looks furious.   
“We could have taken it out! If we’d know, we could have--”   
“We didn’t have the time.” Kylo cuts her off, putting a hand on her arm and meeting her eyes. “We didn’t have that time when we were leaving. You think they aren’t guarding that thing constantly?” Rey opens her mouth, but then closes it again, frustrated. His fingers close around her forearm. “We couldn’t have done anything, then. We had to escape.” Rey thinks of what might have happened if they had been captured again, of the small cell, the examination table, the needles in her skin, and Kylo feels her start to tremble. He draws her in closer, settles an arm around her as the others set about putting their new inventory away. Nuaala sighs.   
“Let’s just keep a line open to try and get what news we can. Right now as things are, we can’t just plunge into a battle like that. This ship is armed, but not  _ that _ armed, and we’re still running the risk of being hauled in for bounty cred.”

They distance themselves from Kafrene. There’s incoming First Order presence that Solea picks up on the radar, and they rush out of the asteroid field again. This ship is big, but it handles decently; Nuaala and Leeno are the best pilots aboard that aren’t in need of serious rest, so they stay in the cockpit while Rey and Kylo Ren are told to go and settle into one of the bedrooms on board.

  
The ship isn’t lavish. Perhaps at some point it was, but it looks as though most of the luxury items have at some time or other been torn out, probably to be traded or sold. They manage to find a bed to take, and the moment they lie down, the lumpy but soft mattress seems to envelop them, and exhaustion very firmly settles in. Kylo curls around Rey, but she shifts until she can rest her forehead against his, her voice sleepy and slowly fading.   
“Just for a…little while…”   
He keeps his arms around her and follows her into sleep, slipping into the bond with her as their bodies rest.  
_ We need to recuperate, this time.  _ He holds onto her while they share this dreamlike space. Rey imagines them lying in soft white sand, a vast, warm ocean rolling around them—and he is content with this, but knows they need to take this seriously. She nods.   
_ We do. We’ll be all right. Just some vitamins and some sleep. Let’s just rest here a while.  _ He nods back, reaching up to stroke her hair.   
_ We’ll rest. But you…  _ He leans in a bit to look her in the face, the both of them tired, watching each other through heavy-lidded eyes.  _ Rey, you’ve been through more than I have. They did more— _ he shuts his eyes a moment, banishing the rage he feels over knowing what they intended, what they did to her the times they took her from that cell.  _ You should see a proper doctor. I don’t...I can’t... _ Rey strokes his hair away from his face with slow, soft hands.   
_ Shhh. I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all…  _ she knows what he isn’t saying, she can hear it in his voice, sense it in him. Her voice is so, so soft now.  _ Everything is fine. Nothing is going to happen. _ He goes quiet and very still for a bit.   
_ There’s nothing…?  _ The unspoken word is ‘there’, and she understands the meaning, shaking her head gently and swallowing.   
_ No. _ Nothing, nothing, nothing. She feels a sense of relief in both of them that they nearly feel guilty for, and aren’t sure why. She takes a deep breath.  _ Now...now isn’t the time. _ She isn’t sure there ever will be a time. But right now...right now, they’re at the center of a galactic war. They’re running from enemies, friends, even family. No, now is not the time for such a thing.

His arms tighten around her. He thinks of things that could have been, things that still could be, and what presently  _ is _ , and he goes still against her.    
_ No, _ he agrees with her,  _ now is not the time _ .   
He isn’t sure there will ever be a time.

 

They wake to the Force circulating between them in a slow, steady current, just as it has before. Rey’s limbs feel less achy, Kylo does not feel so heavy anymore. Their wounds, the few they sustained, are gone. Rey shifts a little against him, still snug in his arms, and takes a deep breath as she wakes, blinking her eyes open slowly. Kylo is still mostly settled in, but his grasp around her tightens slightly when he feels her start to move. Rey exhales softly, pressing her forehead to his.   
_ I’m going to see what’s going on. Just rest if you want to, you don’t have to get up.  _ He makes a quiet sort of grumble at this, but lets Rey wriggle out of his grasp finally.

She pads through the ship’s corridor on bare feet, tying her hair back and stretching some. She doesn’t see the others, doesn’t hear anything, but things seem calm enough.   
Asteria is tinkering with a wall panel a little ways down one of the halls, and when Rey calls out to her she knocks the upside of her lekku on the top of the small hole she’s got her head in and curses, stumbling back a little and looking at Rey in surprise.   
“Rey!” She tosses the little wrench she’d been working with back into the hole in the wall rather carelessly, and meets the human girl in the middle of the hall. “Are you all right? You two’ve been asleep for  _ cycles _ !” Rey blinks.   
“Oh--yeah, I...I think I’m better now. Is...everything all right?” Asteria takes a breath, nodding for Rey to follow her.   
“Come on. Nu told us to bring you up to the cockpit if you woke up, either of you. Is Kylo still asleep?” Rey shook her head.   
_ Kylo. Something’s going on, come to the cockpit,  _ she sends, and feels him stirring and starting to get up to join them.   
“He’s coming,” she tells Asteria, who looks a little mystified.   
“This is really something, what you two have.” Rey looks over at her as the two of them walk.   
“Is it really that strange?” The Twi’lek girl nods, adjusting her deep blue lekku around her shoulders a bit and tugging the bandana she'd had on back from her eyes.   
“I’ve never even heard of it before. Kylo told us you two could see each other,  _ feel _ each other from across the galaxy--I’ve never known of anybody else that could do anything like that.” Rey nods slowly to herself, taking a breath.   
“I heard it’s...happened before. But not for a long, long time.” Asteria looks curious.   
“Yeah?”   
“Yeah. Kylo taught me about Darth Revan, and Bastila Shan--back...back during the Mandalorian Wars, and the Jedi Civil War.” Asteria laughs some at this.   
“He would know about stuff like that. He was always interested in history.” Rey’s curiosity is piqued here.   
“He was?” Asteria nods, glancing over at her.   
“He’s never told you? He was a real bookworm, back then, when we all met. He used to read all the time, we all thought it was a waste of time. You can’t live in the past, right? But…” she shakes her head some, looking almost sad. “He was obsessed with it. Especially when it got out that Vader was his grandfather. That’s some hard information, you know?” Rey nods, sighing softly, recalling the conversation she’d had with him before. It felt like a lifetime ago, now.

“Yeah...I can’t imagine.” They stepped into the spacious cockpit and Nuaala and Leeno turned around in their pilot’s seats to face them. Solea leans against the wall by the door, looking up from a holo when the women enter, and Ran is going over a holo of star charts near Nuaala.   
“You’re up,” Nuaala greets her, and Rey nods.    
“Yeah--I heard it’s been a while…” Ran nods back.   
“A few cycles. We assumed you needed the rest.” Rey nods gratefully.   
“I think we did. But we’re fine now; maybe a little hungry.”   
“Is Kylo up?” Leeno cocks his head slightly, and Rey nods.   
“Yeah, he’s--” as if on cue, Kylo Ren ducks into the cockpit behind Rey and Asteria.   
“What’s going on?” Rey glances up at him and he stands beside her in the doorway, closer than Asteria is on her other side. Nuaala looks mildly amused, and Leeno’s brow goes up about as much as is physically possible for a Rodian. Asteria snorts, heading in to perch on an empty section of the console.    
“Well, we don’t have to worry about them keeping in touch with each other. They’d be perfect reconnaissance agents…” Ran looks amused, but Nuaala shakes her head some, even if she’s smiling a little. It fades, however.   
“We’ve gotten word that the Resistance is hidden out on Crait--they’ve exhausted their fuel reserves running from the First Order, but spies have been reporting intercepted transmissions from Crait to the Outer Rim.” She turns slightly to produce a transmitter, clicking it open so that a droid’s synthetic coding comes over the comm, an announcement of coordinates and scattered numbers. “They’re using Leia Organa’s personal code to broadcast.” Rey feels Kylo go cold in their link, and she takes a breath.   
“What’s been sent out?”   
“SOS calls. The Resistance is on its last legs, from the sound of it. They’re depleted of fuel and trapped on Crait unless reinforcements and assistance arrives.” Rey’s throat tightens.   
“What?” Ran shakes his head.   
“The Battle of D’Qar was the beginning of the end. They’ve been running, but they’ve suffered heavy losses. Their ships are nearly all gone, and if we can believe First Order propaganda, there is estimated to be less than 500 rebels left alive.” He clicks a code into the holopod he’s holding, and shows them a First Order news announcement.    


_ RESISTANCE IS AT AN END. THE TREACHEROUS FACTION HAS BEEN BEATEN TO ITS FINAL LEGS. THE BATTLE OF D’QAR HAS SEEN AN END TO THE RESISTANCE LEADERS, THE TRAITORS ACKBAR, CYPRESS, AND STATURA. THE REBELS CANNOT HIDE. ORDER WILL REIGN. _

Beneath are figures of losses, suffered on both ends. If these are correct, the Resistance is horribly outmanned, outgunned, and out of time. Rey’s brow knits.   
“What about the distress call,” she demands, “Haven’t they gotten aid? Isn’t anyone coming to help them?” Solea speaks up, her voice hard.   
“From what I’ve figured, their call’s been picked up at multiple points through the Outer Rim. No one is responding. Every one of their allies has decided to let them die.”

The cockpit goes silent. Rey’s hands clench into fists and she sends the holo flying out of Ran’s hands.   
“We have to do something!” She shouts, and Kylo puts a hand on her arm, but she shakes him off. “We have to help them, you think this is fine?” She faces them all. “This is a war, sure, but they’re the only ones fighting for freedom. Is that what you all want, the First Order to win? Snoke, Hux, for them to win, to rule everything?” Solea averts her gaze. Ran looks down, summoning the holo back to his hand. Leeno sighs, and Nuaala takes a breath.   
“We’re only a small group, Rey. We have only the weapons we’ve brought, and this ship.” Rey’s quiet for a long moment at this, and then finally Kylo speaks up.   
“Maybe not.”

The group turns to look at him now, Rey included. He takes a breath.   
“I don’t like this, but if we can get….another ship…” Rey’s eyes study his face.   
“The Falcon. You mean the Falcon.” She steps back a little, trying to figure out what he’s seeing with this.   
“If we could contact them--” Rey takes a breath.   
“Chewie. If we can call Chewie to rendezvous with us somewhere--”   
“I don’t think he even would, Rey.” Rey shakes her head, determined.   
“We can get in contact with him. He’s the one who piloted with me to Ahch-To, he helped me to Dagobah and back. He still has the Falcon, and we need his help.” Kylo is quiet, raking a hand through his hair, thinking of being faced with the closest thing he has left to his father. Chewbacca was a constant in his life, his  _ family, _ despite their physical differences, and the last time he saw the Wookiee had been… His side pinches, a physical memory of what had taken place that night. Rey’s eyes are still on his, steady and unwavering.   
“We’ll do this together. He’ll help us, I know he will.”

He hopes she’s right. This is going to end very, very badly if she’s wrong.

 

Solea is the one to send out the communication, tapping into a private comm line of the Resistance’s hub. Her voice is scratchy and crackling over the old line, scrambled slightly by bad tech and long distance. But the call is received all the same:

_...calling for General Leia Organa...I repeat, we are calling for General Leia Organa of the Galactic Resistance. We have apprehended your fugitive, the Jedi girl Rey, and want to negotiate her release to you. We will meet with only the Wookiee Chewbacca, on Kes Hathea in seven cycle-hours. Patching coordinates through now. _

The call is received. The former Knights prepare, and Rey and Kylo Ren go to regroup.   
“Are you sure you want to do this?” His voice sounds hesitant once they’re nearly dressed. Rey looks up to find him staring at her, eyes that same kind of intense she knows they are when he’s bothered by something. She takes a breath, perches on the edge of the mattress behind her.   
“It’s our best option. We find Chewie, we get the Falcon, we get help. There’s no way we could arrange this otherwise, and if the Resistance knows I’m alive, maybe they’ll honor this.” She lets out a heavy sigh, hanging her head and resting her arms on her legs once this is out, however. “Or maybe I’m putting too much value on myself. Maybe this  _ is _ a terrible idea.” Before she knows it, Kylo is knelt in front of her, settling between her legs and loosely framing her waist with his arms.   
“It’s the best plan we have if we want to help them. But Rey…” He shakes his head, gazing up at her imploringly.  “You’re not putting  _ enough _ value on yourself. If something goes wrong here…” Rey takes a breath, nodding a little and swallowing, leaning forward until their foreheads meet.   
“We’ll just...slice our way out of it. It’s worked before, right?” She tries for a laugh, but he curls his arms around her torso, his voice hushed and cold.   
“If anything happens to you, Rey, I would let them all die.”

Rey goes still, but after a moment she wraps her arms around his neck and runs her fingers into his hair, holding him close. She knows he’s lying. She feels it, just the way she can feel him intake a shuddering breath against her, feels his fingers curl into the fabric of her clothes. He thinks of his mother, not simply the rebels, he thinks of Leia, and he is torn. Rey knows in her heart what his choice would be, she just prays it doesn’t come to such a thing.  
“We’ll save them,” she murmurs, stroking his hair, “No matter what.” She takes a hand from his hair and finds one of his from around her, and presses their palms together much the same as they did such a long, long time ago, in two separate, empty rooms, when the bond between them was still new and seemed so alien. His fingers curl around hers slightly, and he holds onto her, unwilling to respond to her assumptions. His mother...his mother, who he spent so, so many years missing. His mother, who he cannot kill. And now Rey--Rey who is half of his soul, Rey who he cannot fathom living without, and he does not know what his answer would be if he found himself facing a future alone.  
His fingers curl into the back of her tunic and he grits his teeth.   
He has had to contemplate these things far, far too much in the recent days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're converging, slowly but surely.  
> there are things tlj presented us with that line up pretty well with how i have this story planned, so ESPECIALLY Crait is something i'm delighted to add.
> 
> brief health lesson. nuaala is the mom friend.  
> these kids are so tired.


	33. Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting.  
> Calculation. Risk. Hope.

The Kes System is out in the Unknown Regions, a lightspeed jump past Jedha and circulating around an enormous silvery gas giant and its’ twin suns. Kes itself is uninhabitable--but its’ three moons are not.

Kes Hathea is the largest of the Moons of Kes; with a clear atmosphere, the planet seems to burn in shades of red and orange and brown. The Falcon hovers offplanet for a time, it’s pilot still comlinked to the Resistance’s lead ship.  
_“Just let us know the moment you make contact. I’m sorry that we can’t spare any ships to be on standby right now…”_ The crackling voice of General Organa herself, who presently sits with a small com in one hand, a little glowing beacon bracelet clasped in the other. “If we can manage _anything_ , then we’ll send any help we can your way.” there’s a muffled, static-ridden roar through the com, and Leia’s fingers tighten around the little bracelet, her eyes closing. They can’t afford to send pilots and they have no ships to send unless help arrives, and thus far...none of their allies have responded. Rey escaped D’Qar ahead of them--Leia knows it was an escape. She knows that Ben took her for a reason, she knows the two of them must still be together. He wouldn’t have let bounty hunters take her like that, the two of them had just barely managed to be separated by an entire army between the Resistance and the First Order. But the Resistance cannot afford anymore loose ends right now. “If Rey is safe…” another roar, and Leia nods. “Yes, exactly that.” She lets out a soft sigh before leaning into the com mic again, “And Chewie? May the Force be with you.”

 

Rey stares through their viewport as they approach planetfall, watching as the ruddy-colored planet slowly envelops the ship. She looks...uncertain, brow knitting and eyes squinting slightly as if she wasn’t expecting this. Kylo’s voice pulls her attention away, however.  
_Rey._   
She turns from the viewport and sees him standing near the doorway of the bridge. The others are at work landing the ship and preparing for what they’re about to do, and no one notices Rey trail over to Kylo slowly before the two of them slip out of the bridge and into the empty hallway outside.

She knows what is coming. Knows before he takes her upper arms and leans over her, worried and anxious. Rey rests her hands on his wrists, taking a soft breath as he leans close, his eyes searching hers.  
“You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to risk yourself like this, Rey.” His tone is hushed, and her thumbs rub over the sleeves on his arms gently. “We can figure something else out. We can find another ship, we can get another--” Rey shakes her head.   
“We need the Falcon. We need Chewie.” Her voice is soft, but steady. She meets his eyes and holds his wrists on her arms, taking a deep breath and trying to pass her own inner calm to him. He resists it, though.   
“I need _you_ ,” His voice is a pained hiss, and Rey goes still, feels her chest tighten and her breath halt. Her heart aches at the look in his eyes, and she feels his fingers tighten around her arms. There is no mask, here. There is no cover, no filter. She sees the raw fear and pain in his eyes and she swallows a lump in her throat, her grasp on his arms tightening as well. She feels it, just as he does, something circulating in the bond between them, something strong and untainted and very real, something that constricts around their hearts and forms a swelling of words that threaten to pour out--and never do.

“Rey…” His voice is tremulous, pregnant with so much more, and she takes another breath, blinking the blur out of her eyes. She takes his hands, holds them tight.  
“This is going to work,” She swears, feeling his fingers close around hers, “It’s going to be all right. He'll be alone, we'll talk.” She can hear the things he doesn’t speak, and he can hear those she doesn’t either. He lets go of her hands and pulls her to him, arms crushing her to his chest.   
She holds on. He feels firm and warm and real in her arms, and Rey memorizes this, memorizes all of it as she knows he has done to her so many times. She remembers the cell on D’Qar. She remembers feeling so isolated it drove her to the edge time and again.   
His hand cradles her head and he breathes deep, lowering his forehead to hers. She’s strong, his girl, his Rey. She’s _so_ strong--and so, so hopeful. He tries to hide the shudder in his breath, in his voice, and holds onto her. A call from the bridge; Nuaala alerting them that they’re landing.   
“You know what to do if something is wrong,” he breathes. She nods, reaching up and running her fingers into his hair. His fingers press into the fabric of her tunic and she feels his forehead press firmly to hers before they both release each other, stepping back. His eyes stay on hers, and they both hold the gaze even as they slowly part ways.

 

They have their coordinates, and land nearby, waiting for sight or sign of Chewbacca. Rey is standing inside the Comet, while Solea, Leeno, and Nuaala, clad in black and with their faces covered, wait outside. Ran stands with Rey just inside the ship, watching and keeping an ear out via open comlink to make sure everything is safe. Kylo waits further in, meditating for the moment. Rey knows he’s anxious, she’s glad he’s trying to be calm.

Kes Hathea is arid and hot--but not desertous, not like the majority of Jakku. This place is a wasteland, devoid of green or plantlife for as far as their eyes can see. Instead of dunes and sinking fields, there are great outcroppings and canyons, caverns deep and plunging and ringed with lines of red and brown and black and orange until in some, no light touches any longer. They stand now in a valley of stone, the twin suns blazing bright in a clear, blue-green sky. Rey wonders how creatures survive here, but she thinks of Jakku, and she knows there is always a way.

The black-clad trio stands in silence for a long few minutes before Solea shifts a little on her feet, tugging the scarf around her mouth down just slightly.  
“He’s late.” The tall figure to her left sighs audibly.   
“I’m hot too, shut up.”   
“Stop reading my mind, Nu. We’re not the 'Bondmates' in there.” The Zabrak girl jerks her head towards the Comet. Nuaala just snorts at this, though, and Leeno waves a hand to silence both of them.   
“Heard something.” both women go on alert again and Solea covers her mouth once more. There’s a sound, sure enough; like heavy footsteps nearby. They’re getting closer, until finally from behind a slab of tall rock a few yards ahead of them, a tall figure emerges.

On the Comet, Rey feels her heartbeat pick up slightly. Chewbacca comes trudging into view, just as she remembers him. It’s been a long time, now--it feels like lifetimes. In the bond, she feels Kylo’s energy stir slightly, but then withdraw. She feels the phantom pain in him as if it were her own, and her hand goes to her side, resting over his hand in the bond, offering comfort. She knows this will not be easy, but they have to do this. This will not go the way Chandrila went. This will not end badly.

Nuaala steps to the front of the trio out in the sunlight.  
“Chewbacca. Alone, like we specified?” There’s a dull roar from the Wookiee, and Nuaala nods her head slightly in its hood. “Good.” She gives another nod, and Solea and Leeno pass her, heading towards Chewbacca and taking a moment to scan the area as best they can. They lead the Wookiee up to Nuaala, who stands just shorter than him, and he rumbles at her almost impatiently. Nuaala turns to the Comet, knowing Ran and Rey inside can see her. “She’s here, as promised. We had to make sure you were alone.” Leeno and Solea stand at Chewbacca’s back, and the four figures watch as a lone figure emerges from the Dark Comet, down the ramp and to the ruddy dirt.

Rey doesn’t bother shielding her eyes from the suns. She adjusts easily enough, and heads out to meet the small group. Chewbacca lets out a rolling sort of growl at the sight of her, and Rey swallows, feeling her chest tighten.   
“Chewie, I’m sorry, but we had to call you here like this.” The others slowly reveal their faces, and the Wookiee squints around at them briefly before making a slightly confused sound. Rey walks up until she’s just a few feet from him, near Nuaala. “They’re not bounty hunters. We’re not turning anybody over to the Resistance. We called you here because we need your help.” Chewie’s brow knits and he rumbles at her, but Rey sighs. “I know--I...the Resistance did what they thought they had to. But that’s not--none of that is true!” He roars at her and Rey shakes her head, “I never betrayed them. I left because--” Another growl cuts her off, and Rey gazes up at the Wookiee pleadingly. “It was a misunderstanding. We went to Chandrila to try and help the Resistance, so that we could tell Leia whatever we could. The Order was there already waiting, and the Resistance was trapping us.” She sounds bitter, sad. Chewie watches her almost dubiously, rumbling warily at her. Rey swallows, reaching for Kylo. Now or never.

“Us. Kylo Ren, and me.” A tall figure on the exit ramp. Chewie goes on alert, roars so loudly it echoes through the cavern. Rey feels Kylo tense in the bond, and within their link she lets him feel her hand around his. “Chewie, please... _please_.” The Wookiee looks confused and sad, but Rey reaches a careful hand towards him. “Please, Chewie. You know me, and I…” He goes quiet, but for a few choppy whine sounds. “I know that things...I know. But...please, Chewie. Please trust me. We need your help.” The Wookiee is silent for a moment as Kylo Ren nears them, and then rests a large, furred hand on Rey’s. She feels something like relief flood over her--at least he’ll give them this chance.

Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, hasn’t seen Chewbacca this close in nearly a decade. The Wookiee stares him down hard as he comes to stand beside Rey, and he faces Chewbacca with tired eyes. Chewie helped raise him. Chewie helped teach him how to fly, carried him on his shoulders and cared for him. Chewie had flown with his parents the day they left him with Luke, and had embraced him tightly after Leia and Han had walked away. Chewie did not see Ben Solo standing there. He didn’t know Ben Solo anymore. Kylo Ren wonders if anyone ever will again.  
He holds the Wookiee’s gaze, but neither of them speak for a long, tenuous moment. Rey takes a soft breath, feeling the emotion charging the air, and her heart aches, but Kylo remains neutral, if a little sad.   
“I know you hate me,” he swallows some, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I understand. I did something you can’t forgive. I know that.” Chewbacca remains silent, watching Kylo Ren speak, and Kylo eventually looks down. “I can’t ask you to forgive me. I don’t forgive myself for it.” Now, the Wookiee does speak, letting out a whining sort of roar, and Kylo flinches.   
“I know who he was! I can’t take it back,” he spits before the vitriol and pain goes, and leaves his voice hollow, “I can’t take it back.” Chewbacca rumbles at him, low and mournful, and Rey can see Kylo’s jaw tighten as he swallows, feel the ache in his chest, and she takes a deep breath, trying to stay silent. It hurts. It hurts in every part of both of them, this thing that tore through Kylo Ren’s spirit and his family. This thing that cut through himself, Chewbacca, Luke--even Finn and Rey--and his _mother_ …   
“What I did...I can’t undo it. Any of it. I did terrible things, and I will carry the burden until the end of my days.” He meets Chewie’s eyes now, and the Wookiee is silent, seeing something there that makes him pause. “But if there’s something right I can do, it’s this. Rey is right. We need your help. The Resistance needs help. We don’t have enough on our own, we need you, and we need the Falcon.” His voice lowers slightly, and there is something old in it, something sincere, something quiet and sad. “Please. Please, Chewie.”

The group watches them in silence. Rey takes another deep breath, steeling herself for the outcome.  
Slowly, Chewbacca steps forward and pulls Kylo Ren into an embrace.   
Rey feels her breath catch, feels the surge of emotion in Kylo, and watches the Wookiee hold onto him, watches Kylo’s arms slowly curl around Chewie in response.

Chewie makes a bleating sort of noise, and Kylo just nods, taking a deep breath.  
“I missed you too, Chewie,” And then, even more softly, “I’m sorry.”

 

They discover Chewie’s got the Falcon concealed in a cave just up the ravine they’re in--and they follow him back to it. They need to make plans, they need to figure out what they can do, what will truly help.  
Kes Hathea is a barren wasteland topside, but when you delved below the planet’s surface…   
Rey couldn’t stop gawking. Asteria and Deneos trailed along with her, delighted at the sight, the others leading the group while still smiling a bit at the sight of the cave around them. Kes Hathea is _glittering_ below the surface. The planet’s core is molten and glowing behind layers of rock; but where it cools, it forms crystals in varying colors and shades--crystals that, when crushed or melted again, would also glow. Because of this, the interior of the planet is like nothing Rey has ever seen before: lit by the glow of the planet’s luminescent ‘blood’, running through veins behind billions of crystals jutting out of and set into the walls of the planet-wide cave systems, the ground glittering in deposits of shattered and crushed rock here and there.The caves cast light on the travelers in reds and blues and greens, yellow and white and violet and orange, beautiful and shining. Rey thinks it is one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen.

The Falcon is nestled inside one of these glowing caverns. Kylo takes a breath as they step inside the old ship, and jolts just slightly when he feels Rey’s hand close around his. She says nothing, but he feels the comfort she eases into their touch and is grateful for it. He feels his father in this ship, feels a sense of sadness and wistfulness that constricts around his chest. Rey’s fingers lace with his, and he follows her in, standing with her near the old Dejarik table as the others sit and stand around the small cabin as well. Chewie eyes the two of them from nearby, dark eyes wandering to their interlocked hands before back to their faces, and when they notice him, he only watches them quietly before offering a slight nod in acknowledgement. Kylo’s hand tightens around Rey’s.

Nuaala is the one to address the room first.  
“We know the Resistance is holed up on Crait. We know they can’t escape on the ships they arrived in, their fuel is gone. Crait is an old base that’s got to be all but gutted by now, they won’t have much, and from what we’re gathering, no one is coming to their aid.” She takes a breath, wetting her lips slightly, “And just by what I’ve been hearing in the channels, those of them trapped on Crait are the very last of the Resistance. They really are on their last legs.” The room goes silent, and Solea shakes her head.   
“They’re trapped. They’re trapped, and even their allies don’t want to help them--this is a death rattle for them, sending out the distress signals--” Chewbacca lets out a distressed and angry roar, and Ran steps in front of Solea to keep her from reacting.   
“It might not be so hopeless. We have a ship,” He glances at Chewbacca with a short nod of his head, “Two ships. We could at least get them out of the base.” Kylo shakes his head.   
“And then where does that leave them? Stranded floating, with nothing.”   
“Better than sitting targets, trapped in an old mine!” Asteria challenges him from nearby. “We get them out, they survive.” Rey nods   
“If we can save them, then that’s still something. We have two ships and now we’ve got weapons. We can do this.” Kylo’s brow knits slightly.   
“There’s still the matter of getting to Crait, and getting them out of that hole without getting blasted into oblivion ourselves. Do you think the First Order is just going to let them starve to death?” His voice is short, and Rey feels it in him, that there’s more behind this. She squeezes his hand.   
“We’ll find a way.” She turns to Chewie, “Chewie...do you know anybody that could get in and out of a military base unnoticed?”

 

_“Can I do it? Of course I can do it!”_ Rey was not expecting to see Maz Kanata again, if she’s honest, but now here they are, gathered around a holo-feed of Maz Kanata, holding something that looks like a sparking light-wand and wearing some kind of hood over her small head. _“You’re just a skip and a jump away from me right now if your coordinates are right! Kes Hathea, eh?”_ Rey nods.   
“Y-yes--where are you? Can we meet you?” Maz nods, waving at them in the holo-feed.   
_“Of course! This is the Force bringing us together--I’m on Kes Albea!”_

 

As they depart, Rey and Kylo Ren sit aboard the Dark Comet with the others again, the crew of them following Chewie out in the Falcon. They take a route out through the deep cave system, passing through the center of the planet: one enormous, glowing, faceted crystal, radiating light out in all colors, in all directions. The colors play over Rey’s face as Kylo looks over at her, watching the awe in her eyes.  
“If this ends...if this all ends, then someday...I want to come back here.” Her voice is soft, a slight, quiet, hopeful thing. “I want to see the galaxy.”

 

Kes Albea is the smallest of the Moons of Kes. A brief flight, but a careful landing.  
Albea is the smallest of the moons, and the furthest from the twin suns, its orbit keeping it in constant darkness. When the two ships land, Rey is already in awe of this small, violet planet, its atmosphere swirling with grey and black--but stepping out of the ship is something new entirely.

Everything is white, and quiet. The planet’s surface is white sand--as soft and fine as snow, as ash, ghosting up around their feet with every step, every small movement and billowing into small flurries with the occasional wind. There are mountains in the distance, pale and massive, like teeth jutting towards the sky, and they can see buildings--white stone and glowing with soft light--built into the slopes; but otherwise the planet looks wide and flat.   
The sky is endless and clear, where they are currently landed, but clouds hover on the far horizon and they can see _lightning_ , striking quick and shockingly bright, entire webs of electricity in some strikes. The group keeps their hoods up, gazing out over the silent landscape. Asteria pulls the scarf over her mouth down slightly after a moment, watching lightning play in the distance.   
“There are oceans, probably not far from here. They’re black, and white fish swim in them. They look like ghosts,” She tells Rey as they wait for contact from Maz. Rey shakes her head slowly, trying to picture this.   
“You’ve been here?” the Twi’lek girl takes a breath, glancing over to where Solea is standing, currently with her back to them.   
“A time or two, yes. It is a good place to meet informants. Removed, quiet. People don’t come here unless they’re looking for something. The Travari, the natives here, they don’t….they don’t like intruders, or noise.”

There’s something white billowing up, heading from one of the closest mountainside collections of buildings. The group watches and subtly moves a bit closer together, Chewie letting out a rumbling growl at the sight before they can make out what it actually is. Some sort of hovering platform, upon which stand Maz Kanata, flanked by two strange, tall figures in layered white garments that cover them down just short of their strange, thin black feet. Their hoods conceal whatever lies beneath, displaying only silent darkness to onlookers--but they stand tall as Chewbacca, and seem strangely lithe under their layers of white fabric. They three of them are on a thin black platform that zips over the white sand, sending a trail of it spraying up behind them until they come to a wildly abrupt stop in front of the group, and Maz lets out a noise that makes everyone jolt at how loud it seems compared to how quiet the atmosphere has been.  
“At last!” the two cloaked figures seem to bristle at the noise, jerking slightly and somehow, even without expression or faces, manage to look offended. Maz ignores them, stepping off the hovering platform and parting the group like waves to go immediately to Chewie. “There you are! Come here, I’ve missed your handsome face!” Chewie makes an almost flustered sort of noise and leans down a bit, letting Maz kiss his furred cheek, patting his head before letting him stand upright again so she can turn to face the others.   
More specifically, to face Rey and Kylo Ren.

The group parts to let her see them, understanding where her gaze lies. Rey and Kylo stand together, Kylo’s arm nearly going around Rey’s waist when Maz focuses on them though he stops himself. Rey swallows a bit, offering Maz a small smile.  
“Hello Maz,” she murmurs, recalling the last time, the first time, she ever saw the small creature. Maz comes toward them at her usual jaunty gait, looking the two of them over before stopping in front of them to study their faces, adjusting her large goggles for a good long moment as she does.   
“I see you found someone just as lost as you,” comes Maz’s voice finally, sounding strangely sage and solemn as she takes Rey’s hand. “Gave up waiting, did you?” Rey feels overwhelmingly emotional suddenly, facing Maz Kanata again. She nods, feeling her chest tighten and her eyes start to water slightly.   
“I did.” Her voice sounds thick, and her smile widens. Maz nods, looking satisfied and patting Rey’s hand. Her beady eyes behind the goggles flick up to Kylo Ren, appraising and calculating.   
“I imagine this means you’ve come back, boy.” Kylo takes a breath, gazing back. He hasn’t seen Maz Kanata since he was a child--but she knows him. Of course she does.   
“Hello, Maz.” His voice is quiet, but the small alien woman reaches out and practically yanks him down to get a better look at his face, her little leathery hand taking his chin as she studies him.   
“Your mother’s face,” she remarks, and Rey feels Kylo go still. Maz lets out the slightest sigh, her mouth in an almost grim smile. “But I see your father.” Kylo flinches at this and Maz lets him go, watching his jaw set slightly. Maz shakes her head a bit, “No one ever truly leaves us, Ben Solo. You are your father’s son.” Before he can say anything, she groans a bit and glances around at the others. “And now it seems we need to save your mother, and the Resistance!” She looks from one face to the next. “And this is what we’ve got?” there’s quiet at her somewhat disappointed tone, and after a long moment Chewie lets out a grumbling sound. Maz waves it off. “I’ve made do with less before. Let’s get to work! If we waste much more time there won’t be anything left to save!”

 

“Haven’t been to Crait in years--not since that bit of business with the Mining Union!” Maz adjusts her goggles a bit as she fiddles with the scanner on the Dark Comet’s bridge. Whoever’s had this ship has modified the scanner in the nav system to reach much, much further and give much more detailed log readings; Solea is convinced they were bounty hunters. Maz finds an entry on Crait and its’ salt mines, and zooms in, projecting a holo-map of part of the mines to the group. She tuts, shaking her head a bit and rubbing at her chin, squinting at the chart. “It looks like most of the tunnels have been blocked or collapsed!” She sounds only mildly aggravated. “They’ll be trapped in that place unless we can get them out, from the look of things.” She points to one wide, open cavern. “This is where they’ll be. I can get in and let them know you’re coming, but you’ll have to find the lot of us to get everyone out in the end!” Leeno exhales loudly and Solea shakes her head some, but Rey leans in a bit more, studying the caves.  
“There has to be a way to do that.” Maz looks thoughtful.   
“There are creatures that live in these cave systems, crystal creatures, vulptex. They find their way in and out no matter what! If we can find a place they can wiggle their way out of, then perhaps we could follow! But the mines are extensive. You’ll have to find our exit.” Kylo’s brow knits.   
“And just how are we supposed to do that?” Chewbacca is the one who speaks up here, and the group turns to look at him. Rey’s brow shoots up.   
“A tracking beacon?” Solea’s brow knits nearby and the others look a bit uncertain. Kylo frowns.   
“A tracking beacon? Who has the receptor?” A soft bleating sound from Chewie, and Kylo takes a slow breath. Rey looks pensive.   
“Leia’s with the others. If she has the receptor...then if she stays with them, we can track the whole group that way. But we would have to use the Falcon.” Kylo turns to look at her, unsure.   
“The Comet is bigger, it could hold the remainder of the Resistance with much more ease.” Rey shakes her head.   
“That’s exactly why it has to be the Falcon. The Comet would be way too conspicuous, and it’s nowhere near as well armed, or as fast!” Kylo nods slowly, and Asteria pipes up,   
“I could work on that, but it’d take some time. At least it would ensure we could get the hell out of there as soon as we had the others on board…” Rey nods, and Kylo still looks uncertain, but nods slowly once again.   
“We let the Comet wait offplanet. Get the Resistance onto the Falcon, and then rendezvous here before jumping.” Leeno nods in agreement.   
“Two of us stay with the Comet. One of them has to be a pilot,” Asteria nods, breaking in.   
“I’ll stay here to work on the ship. I think you should stay to pilot, Leeno.” She nods at the Rodian, and Leeno looks a bit put-out.   
“And miss all the action?” Nuaala gives him a pointed look.   
“As little action as we can manage. I want in and out of there.” Solea nods firmly.   
“The Order’s gonna be on our asses the entire trip. You know they’re hovering like corpse birds already, and that fucker Hux has an itchy trigger finger if you ask me…” Leeno sighs, shrugging and nodding.   
“I’ll stay at the bridge. So that’s me and ‘Ria, anybody else?” Nuaala rests a hand on the weapon at her belt.   
“I’m going planetside with Rey and Kylo.” Solea nods.   
“So am I.” Ran gives a small incline of his tendriled head.   
“And I.” Solea turns to look at Deneos pointedly, eyes narrowing slightly at the youngest of the group. Maz notices this, however, and looks curious.   
“I could certainly use some cover--he looks small enough to slip in and out with me. You, boy, what is your name?” Deneos looks a little startled.   
“Den...Deneos--”   
“Good. Deneos, you’ll be my bodyguard. We’re leaving soon, I suggest you bring your lightsaber, or whatever it is you have to protect us!” Deneos looks a bit alarmed, but Nuaala gives him a firm nod.   
“You’ll go with Maz. We’ll get you a comlink so you can keep contact with whoever goes on the Falcon.”

Rey nods at this.  
“I’ll go.” Kylo turns to look at her now, shaking his head.   
“Then I’ll go with you.” Rey shakes her head in return, however.   
“We need to split up for this,” She says, not liking the idea herself, but she knows it’s for the best. “The last time they got us together, it was...it was almost the end.” In the bond, Kylo reaches for her and Rey takes his hands, letting their two energies envelope each other. He knows she’s right. They can’t both be together, not right now. This is important. Finally, he nods.   
“Then Nuaala, Solea, Ran and I will be a diversion.” Nuaala raises a brow.   
“A diversion?” Kylo turns to the others now, offering a quirk of a grin.   
“Not up for a challenge?” Ran looks quietly amused by this, and Solea’s mouth curves into a little smirk, her arms folding over her chest.   
“You’ve been away too long if you have to ask, Kylo Ren.”

 

Maz and Deneos depart in a tiny ship provided by the Travari Maz has been with. The strange, solemn, hooded figures bow to Maz as she and Deneos depart, and Nuaala rests a hand on Deneos’ arm briefly.  
“Contact us when you reach the base. Stay with Maz. Tell no one who you really are.” Deneos nods, swallowing, his eyes flicking to Asteria hesitantly. Asteria nods at him as well, and comes to stand with Nuaala.   
“Stay quiet, do what Maz tells you. Let her do the talking, and keep us all informed.” The human boy doesn’t look all that confident, but he nods, stepping back away from the two women.   
“I--I will.” Nuaala takes a breath as they watch him depart, but Solea is the one to speak up behind them.   
“If he does what he’s told he’ll be fine. He’s good at being quiet and doing what everyone tells him to.” It’s meant to be sardonic, but Asteria nods, determined.   
“Let’s get ready.”

 

Asteria sets to work on the Comet. They find that the Falcon fits into the Comet, and so they travel together until Crait is in sight, and then they remain cloaked and hovering offplanet, waiting for contact from Maz and Deneos. Chewie keeps the tracking beacon aboard the Falcon, and as Nuaala, Solea, and Ran prepare to go down to the planet with Kylo Ren, he and Rey take a moment to talk.

They sit aboard the Falcon now, around the small dejarik table. Rey faces him, watching him study the table itself, eyes occasionally drifting around the ship’s hold. She reaches to take his hand after a moment, and he curls his fingers around hers instinctively.  
“You know how to pilot this thing. How to shoot.” He sounds quiet, resigned, but certain. Rey nods, squeezing his hand gently.   
“And I know you can hold out, with the others beside you.” His fingers tighten around her hand and his eyes meet hers.   
“I would rather have _you_ beside me.” Rey takes a breath, and shuts her eyes for a moment, squeezing his hand back gently.   
“I would rather be there too.” It’s true. She would rather be with him, fighting with him, but she knows that right now she’ll be more use in the sky. He knows, too.   
“When this is done, there’s still the bunk room.” Rey goes quiet, looking him in the eyes again.   
“We’ll need room for the Resistance. They’ll need space, and the Comet is perfect for that right now.” Her thumb rubs the back of his hand gently, “But...there is the Falcon, still.”

Kylo takes a deep breath, considering this.  
“This ship...it isn’t mine.” Rey tilts her head a bit to hold his gaze.   
“Your father--” she feels him flinch, and holds onto his hand, refusing to back away, “--would want you to be here. Would want you on the Falcon.” She glances towards the corridor, “And Chewie is glad you’re here again too.” Kylo Ren swallows, breathing quietly.   
“They’re still waiting for Ben Solo, Rey.” His voice is low. “What happens if Ben isn’t coming back?”

Rey is silent for a moment, studying his face, her eyes searching his. This is something they’ve been at odds over for a long time now, something she’s been conflicted about for such a long time, and until now, after she’s watched Maz Kanata and Chewbacca both interact with him again.  
“I think that you are enough,” she says softly.   
Kylo Ren’s eyes widen slightly, and his fingers curl around Rey’s before he leans in to rest his forehead against hers, letting her hold his head close, her fingers running into his hair. Kylo wraps his arms around her waist, holding her close, feeling them both wrap around one another in the bond and for a moment, there’s an energy there that they remember, but now...now it feels less bleak, less anxious. His fingers press into her clothing and he rubs his forehead against hers gently. Rey swallows, takes a breath, and nods, her lips curving into the slightest smile.   
“I’ll be waiting for you.”   
Kylo Ren lets out the quietest breath, smiling the same.   
“I know.”

  
_“We found them, we found the Resistance!”_ Deneos’ crackling voice comes over the comlink in Nuaala’s hand, loud enough for the others to hear. Nuaala looks pleased, nodding, and Leeno makes a satisfied noise. Rey smiles brightly, determinedly, as Nuaala responds.   
“That’s half the work for you, then. Now just stay with them--work on finding a way out of there. We’re making planetfall now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here's a game of 'count the canon easter eggs i stuffed into this chapter'  
> i missed maz so here is some maz  
> also chewie is the best dad/uncle/space guardian so he had to come back
> 
> i was torn about the chewie/ben interaction, i'm not gonna lie. i think chewie is still incredibly upset about han's death, but likewise...chewie probably helped raise that kid. ben is almost his son, too; if he knew that ben was trying to help, that he was trying to save his mother, that rey trusted him...  
> i think chewie's been waiting to let ben back in. maybe this isn't how he hoped it would go, but he's got his boy back.
> 
> crait's coming up!  
> the two planet locales in this one were just some self-indulgent fun. maybe i'll revisit the kes system one day, since there's a whole other moon to talk about c;


	34. Crait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of Crait

In the gutted remains of the Rebellion base, the last members of the Resistance face Maz Kanata and Deneos Gavron with uncertainty in their eyes.

Poe Dameron is at their head, standing over both Maz and Deneos, brow quirked in confusion.  
“Maz, I don’t know how the two of you got in here, but we’re kinda in a pinch right now--” Maz waves him off, however, turning to look at the others, her eyes pausing on Leia.  
“How we got in here is not important! What _is_ important is _why_ we are in here with you!” She looks around a moment longer, however, eyes narrowing slightly. “Where is Luke!” The rebels, what little remain of them all, stare at her. A few steps behind her, Deneos is on his comlink again.  
“There’s an army advancing out there, they’ve got a laser cannon,” he relays hurriedly, and the eyes in the room turn to him as he continues, not noticing the stares. “You have to hurry, Nu, we’re running out of time!” There are gasps around the room, and then Deneos does notice the others looking at him. Poe’s brow knits.  
“Maz, they got a _cannon_ out there?” But immediately he and the others are rushing to check the viewport to see for themselves.

It’s worse than simply a cannon.  
“They got a battering ram cannon--and I’m counting two walkers, and _eleven_ M6s!” Finn shakes his head at the rebels as they listen.  
“If they use that thing on the door, it’ll crack open like an egg. We have to stop it.” Men rush into the trenches outside of the base, armed as best as they can all manage. Maz tries to stop it all, but her words fall on deaf ears until she pulls Leia aside. Deneos stays with Maz, keeping his comlink in hand.

“We have to stop this,” Maz warns Leia, “Those soldiers need to come back!” Leia’s brow knits slightly and she shakes her head slowly at the smaller woman.  
“Maz, what’s going on--” But she’s interrupted by a crackling voice on Deneos’ comlink.  
_“--all! We’re coming, Den, you and Maz get them out of there!”_  
Leia’s eyes go to Deneos’ face and she studies him for a long moment.  
“Who are you?” Slowly, Deneos meets her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

 

Out in the trenches, the soldiers are armed--Finn, Rose, Poe, and a few other pilots have hopped into the remaining ski-speeders that work on the old base, aiming for the cannon. Red sprays up from the white ground in their wake, angry jet trails marking their paths. TIE fighters come screaming down towards them within moments, firing on the old skimmers, and the small land-craft break out of the group. The skimmers keep heading for the cannon, trying to avoid fire from the TIE fighters, until a ship comes streaking across the sky, firing on the TIE ships and taking out at least four of them as it passes overhead. The pilots in their skimmers snap their gazes upward, watching the Millennium Falcon zip past, gunner turret blasting two more fighters out of the sky.  
“Woo!” Finn punches the air in his skimmer, watching the ship pass and TIE ships tearing off after it. Poe grins broadly, shouting over the com channel between the pilots.  
“She’s drawing ‘em off! Go, Chewie, go!” Finn and Rose laughed into their mics, and Finn watched the ship go, the fighters firing at it as they chased it off over the white mountain ridge and out of sight.  
“Oh, they _hate_ that ship!”

In the trenches, the soldiers can only watch the pilots picked off one-by-one until finally the ships turn back--Poe calls for a retreat as the cannon’s mouth begins to open, a beam of blazing energy hitting the blast door of the old base. The soldiers are shouting, some of them rushing back into the base, others waiting to see the rest of the remaining pilots back in safely--but Finn’s ship continues hurdling towards the cannon, even as Poe and the others double back. There are roars, screams, not loud enough to carry over the sounds of battle and the ruined ground, not loud enough to reach the pilot speeding to his death until finally most of them must turn away.

There is a _bang_ ; something not loud enough to be an explosion but loud enough to draw attention: another skimmer has rammed into Finn’s, sending both craft flying out of the laser’s path. The ships collide and skitter across the red ground, spraying red salt up around them and catching fire before Finn tumbles out of one ship to rush to the other. Poe waves the trench soldiers into the base, trying to keep his eyes on Finn and Rose, trying to wait for them, to buy time. But in the end he too retreats when the shield door is blown through.

 

Acrid black smoke pours from the new hole in the great door, flames licking at the wound and the ground around it. The walkers and M6s wait, pausing as a command shuttle comes to hover over the cannon in the center of it all.  
General Hux is at the command here, standing behind the pilots and presiding over the destruction below them, unmoving and merciless.  
“Good. Their defense has been ruptured; begin deploying the Stormtroopers. I want that base hollowed out for good.”

Inside the base, the rebels mass together around Finn, helping him drag Rose into the base until they reach the General, who stares at Maz and Deneos in disbelief. It’s now that Luke Skywalker emerges from the depths of the caves, shaking his head slightly.  
“I can’t find any unblocked tunnels, Leia. We’ll have to find another way. I can hold--” His voice cuts off when he sees Maz and Deneos, however, and as the rebels turn to look at him, they watch the old master fall silent, eyes wide as he stares at the young boy standing with Maz. Deneos’ face, however, has turned somewhat cold. He stares Luke down with a strength none of them could imagine was in him, watching as the old Jedi slowly approached them. Leia takes a deep breath, facing her brother with the others. “You…” Deneos gives a slow nod.  
“Skywalker.” Luke’s eyes narrow and his brow knits.  
“If you’re here…” Maz raises her voice in exasperation.  
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you all!” Poe turns from Finn and Rose to look at them again.  
“What have you been trying to tell us? We gotta get out of here, there’s no more time for anything now--” But Maz only looks past him, and Deneos turns to follow her gaze.  
“There will be time now. They are _buying_ you time!”

The entirety of the base turns to look at what Maz and Deneos are staring at.  
Through the punched hole in the shield door, the smoke is clearing: standing in the ruins of the door and the now-ruddy ground are four figures, facing the oncoming troops. As the base watches, lightsabers ignite--two short yellow blades, a standard green, and finally at the center, a blindingly white blade, and a red, with two short beams at the handle.

The base falls silent for a long moment, staring. Luke and Leia’s breaths catch, and Poe and Finn lurch forward slightly in shock.  
“Is that--?!”  
“What the hell’s goin' on?!” Leia steps forward, shaking her head in amazement.  
“They’re buying us time.” Poe takes a deep breath, and then nods hurriedly.  
“All right. All right--everybody we got this chance, we can’t blow it! We gotta get everything we can and get outta here, fast!”

The Resistance springs into action, gathering what they can. Leia stands with Maz, Poe, Finn, and Deneos, while Luke stares at the four figures outside. Leia looks from Maz to Deneos.  
“What can you tell us? What do we need to do?”

 

“I’ve always wanted to take one of those bigass sixes down myself,” Solea palms her two small blades next to Nuaala, bending her knees slightly. Ran takes a breath nearby, shuts his eyes, focuses. His green blade held in front of him, Ran keeps a steady but passive stance beside Kylo Ren. Nuaala glances at Kylo, taking a breath.  
“Bigger from down here.” He nods, spinning his blade once in his grasp.  
“Just means it’ll be a harder blow to take them down.” Nuaala nods, smirking a little to herself.  
“Guess that’s how we’re gonna look at it today.”  
“How’s your girl doing, Kylo?” Solea calls, glancing past Nuaala, and Kylo gives a slight nod before glancing up. Rey’s aboard the Falcon still, taking out the last of the TIE ships. She and Chewie are fine; she gives him a little grin when she feels him reaching out.  
_“We’re fine! Be careful down there, I’ll let you know when we’ve got the Resistance!”_  
Kylo cast a brief glance behind them, not quite able to see anyone, but knowing the rebels are trying to get out.  
“She’s fine. They’re working on getting everyone out now.”  
“Hux is up there, in the shuttle,” Ran intones, “They will be firing soon.” Nuaala takes a more ready stance, facing the walkers and their guns down.  
“Then we’d better get ready.”

There were no masks today. No masks, no hoods. They stood in the sunlight with their faces bare, their old blades in their hands. Nuaala feels the grip of her lightsaber, feels the crystal inside resonate in her grasp, and she feels strong. Solea swings her twin blades around a time or two, loosening her arms and tossing the two swords in her grasp, grinning.  
“I missed these,” she admits, and Nuaala nods.  
“So did I.” Kylo glances at the two women, and Ran nods beside him.  
“It feels right to hold them again. It is the right time.” Kylo’s fingers tighten around his own saber, and he focuses ahead. He hopes this will be a good day for them all to wield these blades again.

 

One of the M6s takes a hulking step towards them, and the four warriors go at the ready. Aboard the command shuttle, General Hux’s eyes narrow as an officer looks at him a bit skeptically.  
“General, orders?”  
“What do they think they’re doing…” Hux mutters, stepping closer to the viewport. He narrows his eyes further, focusing on Kylo Ren amidst the Jedi, recalling their last...interaction...and his fingers clench into fists. “It’s no matter. Send out the troops. Take Ren, leave no survivors otherwise.”

On the ground, Kylo Ren and the others watch as hundreds of troopers are lowered from the AT-ATs, and some from the M6s as well. A small army, coming immediately for them. Solea twitches as if she’s going to lurch forward, and Nuaala stops her with one hand.  
“Let them come to us.” Kylo nods.  
“Don’t lose ground here. We’re keeping them out of the base. There are too many to rush out further yet.” Solea exhales loudly, but obeys.  
“They’d better hurry the fuck up, then. If we’re in the middle of this shit, I’m going for one of those walkers.” She gestures up at the huge, hulking machines with a lightsaber blade, shrieking across the expanse that was beginning to fill with white-clad Stormtroopers. “You hear me? I’m coming for a walker today!”

Blasterfire erupts as if she’s triggered it with her declaration.

 

Immediately the four of them go on the defensive. Blades block blaster shots, reflecting them back as best they can. At least the fire was coming from mostly one direction, and so between the four of them it is easy enough to dodge or deflect it, and take out dozens of troopers in the process. They hold their ground decently enough, but after the soldiers begin to get into closer range, they advance slightly.

The air is thick with smoke and red spray from the ground, but the four force-users can use that. Ran and Nuaala move to stand together, and after a brief moment of concentration, the two of them send out a concentrated wave of energy that slams dozens of troopers into the ground and one another before they move as a unit, rushing forward and into the fray. Solea darts into a group of them on her side of things, making quick work of the soldiers with two blades--her movements are brutal but precise, and she goes for throat and chest with each swing. Kylo Ren deflects shot after shot until finally he rushes the troops head-on with a loud roar, slashing at the white armor violently.

The smoke clouds the air and their vision, clouds of it billowing up around them as the fight continues. The Stormtroopers are not unarmed but for the blasters; some of them are equipped with vibroblades and batons, and the force-users are not wholly unscathed. Solea is possibly the bloodiest of them, but one look at her and Kylo Ren knows that the majority of it is not her blood. She’s getting more and more vicious as the fight continues, cracking helmets together with her bare hands and slashing troopers through their visors, their chestplates, their neck guards. Nuaala and Ran are less dirty; the two of them fight back-to-back, taking turns utilizing the raw Force to knock their enemies back and their blades to strike.  
Kylo Ren rushes through the troops towards the command shuttle, slicing a path through the Stormtroopers and kicking up a trail of red as he goes. He does not care if his strikes kill or maim, only that they remove any obstacles. It’s clear they’re holding their own, and now he senses it in unison from them-- _go for the walkers_ .  
_Rey_ , he sends, Force-pushing a group of Stormtroopers so that they’re slamming into the oncoming forces behind them, _what’s taking so long?_

 

Aboard the Falcon, Rey and Chewie have finally lost the TIE fighters, but they’ve damaged the turret badly. Rey’s back in the cockpit with the wookiee once they’ve broken out of the ravine they flew into for cover, grabbing the beacon bracelet and trying to keep an eye out for any signs of movement. She shakes her head when she hears Kylo, eyes scanning the white crags below them.  
_I don’t know! We can’t find them, we had to lose the First Order ships--we’re trying to locate them, but--_ there’s a beeping sound and the beacon begins to flash red and blue. Rey’s eyes flick from it to the white ground below.  
“Chewie! Get us lower, they’ve got to be right under us…”

 

Inside the caves, the Resistance is following Maz and Deneos, who are following the small, glittering fox-like creatures that inhabit the caves.  
“If those things could get in and out, then so can we!” Poe declared, and Maz began ushering them all to follow.  
Leia casts a fleeting look through the hole in the blast door before turning away again, following the others. Her son is not dead. Despite everything, he’s come to save them when they needed it most.  
Leia takes Luke’s arm as they follow the rest of the rebels, giving him a meaningful look. Neither of them speaks.

 

“They’ve got to be somewhere, Chewie! The beacon says we’re right on top of them!”

_Rey, an exit would be good soon..._

“Come on, everyone! This way!”

 

The smoke begins to settle as the blasterfire finally dies down, leaving four bloodied and wounded force-users standing amidst piles of white-armored bodies. Kylo Ren stands nearly right under the command shuttle General Hux stood on, staring up defiantly where he knows the ginger officer must be.  
Hux, aboard the shuttle, looks furious.  
“Hundreds of troopers,” he snaps, “And they’ve been taken out by _four traitors with swords_?!” The pilots in front of him flinch slightly at the sudden volume of his voice. “Fire on the three closest to the base, now!”

Solea takes off at a sprint towards Kylo and the walkers once the smoke has cleared. Nuaala and Ran dust themselves off and survey the ground, casting a brief glance towards the base, but before anything else can be so much as said, they’re all being forced to evade fire from the enormous walkers.  
“Kylo!” Nuaala shouts, she and Ran rushing over the littered battleground towards him, trying to dodge the blasts. Solea makes it close enough to launch herself in a flying jump at the closest AT-M6 with an echoing, almost feral shriek, digging her blades into the metal and using the brief hold to catapult herself up higher. The others manage to watch as she swings herself into the viewport, smashing through it--immediately following this is a series of blaster shots, loud cries, and then a small explosion in the cockpit before the walker’s legs creak and groan and then one by one, they collapse. Solea comes flying back out of the destroyed viewport and hits a pile of Stormtroopers only to stumble back to her feet, her brown skin bloody and covered in soot, notable wounds on her side, shoulder, and legs. The others stare at her for a moment, aghast and holding off blasts with a very brief Force shield, as the zabrak girl pants for breath and then spits out a mouthful of blood as the M6 walker catches fire behind her.  
“Told you I was taking one of them.”

The blasts have paused, but now the walkers are all focusing on the group of them standing there together. Nuaala watches the burning walker start to fall, however, and suddenly reaches out to give it a hard shove with the Force--sending it crashing into the walker beside it as it falls.  
Alarms start to go off. The shots firing at them are getting to be faster, and more of them at that. Kylo and Ran have begun trying to deflect the shots back as much as they can, but it’s taking its toll, and both of them are wounded as well.  
Solea and Nuaala take a turn helping Ran deflect, and Kylo Ren faces the walkers down, reaching out for one of them closer to him. He takes a deep breath, eyes narrowed, Force focused on the hulking beast of a machine. He thinks of the Order, he thinks of Rey, and with a roar, he closes his fingers into a fist, tearing his arm downwards. The hull of the M6 _crunches_ , crumples in on itself, and the walker starts to fall as black smoke pours out of it. He feels it in him, anger, hatred, darkness--and turns on another walker before he can stop himself, adrenaline and pure power rushing through his veins.  
_Rey…_

 

The rebels have come to a dead end. With stunned and hopeless eyes, they watch as the last of the crystal foxes wiggles its way out through a caved-in wall of stones.  
“No!” Poe shouts, rushing and slamming an angry, desperate fist into the rocks, “No!” Finn lets out a long, deflated breath.  
“We’re trapped.”

 

Rey manages to spot a herd of strange animals rushing up into the jagged rocks below them, and the beacon is mostly just flashing long breaks of red now. They’re right on top of the Resistance, and hurriedly she has Chewie help her bring the ship down onto a lower ridge.  
“They’re here, I can feel it! Stay on the ship!”  
She skids down the rocks until she finds the source of all the energy she can feel. She takes a deep breath, a small smile curving over her lips as she faces the salt-covered wall of rock.  
_The Force is what gives a Jedi their powers,_ she can hear her grandfather in her head, and shuts her eyes, reaching out.  
_You are one with the Force, and the Force is with you,_ another voice, a familiar laugh. Rey feels _energy_ , energy, and hope, and she lets it flow through her fingertips, reaching with it and latching onto the rocks. Another voice.  
_For my ally is the Force--and a powerful ally it is…_ Rey’s fingers curl inward slightly, her hold on the rocks tightens, and finally she wills it all to expand.

 

The rocks begin to shudder, and the rebels fear they’re caving in--those closest hurry back away, but then something amazing happens.

A miracle.

 

Rey opens her eyes as the light floods into the cave chamber, illuminating the last of the Resistance waiting on the other side. The rocks covering the tunnel exit float out of their way, creating a path for the rebels to flee. For a moment, there is only silence as they see their savior, and as Rey sees them. She gazes at them all with quiet eyes, hand still outstretched to hold the rocks. From behind her, Chewie roars from the walkway of the Falcon, and Rey takes a breath.  
“Hurry. Everyone get on board!”

 

“Now would be an amazing time for your girl to come get us,” Solea coughs, the four of them standing nearly pressed together. They’re all tired, and aching. Everything smells of blood and salt and smoke, burning plastoid, burning fuel, burning flesh. Nuaala takes a deep breath and coughs now as well.  
“She’s got a point, Kylo…” They’re getting tired, and the blasts are getting harder to fend off from the remaining walkers. Hux knows they’re getting weak, and is waiting, now, for them to tire out. Kylo’s limbs feel so heavy and he’s so exhausted, the adrenaline of battle is wearing off even if he still feels the rage--he’s been tired for weeks, now, and even with the few days of sleep, he and Rey are not both completely healed.  
_Rey, where are you?_

 

The Millennium Falcon comes soaring past the line of walkers, the door lowering as it flies. Rey stands holding onto one of the support beams, wind whipping at her hair.  
“Shields are up, Chewie, let’s get them and get out of here!” The four fighters standing together stare up at the incoming ship with wide eyes.  
“Son of a bantha,” Solea gets out, holding her side, “I guess we’re not gonna die.”

Rey reaches out her arm as the Falcon flies past.  
“You’ve gotta hurry, we don’t stand a chance against the walkers!” She’s shouting over the wind and the rush of motion. The four of them lock arms and lurch into motion, rushing for the Falcon’s entry as the ship passes. Rey reaches with her hand and the Force, grabbing hard onto Kylo and not letting go, using what bit of energy and strength she has left to haul him and the others as far onto the ship as she can. They nearly make it, Kylo lands firmly against Rey and the others scramble up onto the lift as fast as they can.  
Rey’s arms lock around Kylo and his around her with a quiet, shared breath, a sigh from both as they collapse into Falcon,   
"Rey--"  
"Kylo--"  
Nuaala helps Ran and Solea trudge into the interior, the two of them leaning on her shoulders as they move further into the ship.  
“Go, Chewie, hurry! We’re all in!” The togruta shouts as loud as she can towards the cockpit, and within moments the hatch has closed again and the ship is jumping offplanet, out of reach of the still-firing First Order walkers.

 

They nearly crash land into the Comet, hailing Leeno and Asteria to take off quite literally as they’re landing, and the Falcon skids into the Comet’s small hangar. No one seems to move or breathe, and inside the Falcon is almost totally silent until the call comes through Deneos’ comm from Leeno:  
_“All clear. We’ve made the jump to lightspeed.”_ _  
_ All at once, the ship seems to heave a sigh of relief. There is movement, suddenly, as if time was holding its breath, and sighed with the passengers. Deneos comes rushing to Nuaala, Solea, and Ran--the three of them are wounded, badly, but alive, and as now Asteria and Leeno come rushing onto the Falcon themselves, Chewie, Maz, and the Resistance come to see them as well.

The rebels give them space, watching the twi’lek and the rodian come on board to regroup with their wounded friends. Asteria goes to her knees and looks into their faces, speaking softly and asking about their wounds. Deneos hovers, quietly trying to assess the damage, and Leeno nods along as they respond quietly to Asteria’s questions. Leia steps a bit closer after a few moments, her voice quiet, but firm, and enough to carry.  
“I cannot express to you how grateful the Resistance is to all of you. What you did today…” Leia’s fingers closed around the lapel of her coat, over her heart, and she bowed her head to them. “What you did out there today will be remembered. You are responsible for saving all of us, for helping keep the Resistance alive.” The former Knights face Leia now, and the rebels at her back. Their faces are solemn, but grateful all the same. Nuaala, wounded though she is, sits up a bit further to address them.

“We’re not saviors.” Her golden eyes are hard, tired and ancient in her youthful face. “We aren’t heroes. We were your enemies, just days ago. You know us, all of us, even if you haven’t seen our faces.” Somehow, the group around her seems that much older, that much harder, that much more dangerous. “You may never have heard our names, but you know who we were. We were called the Knights of Ren.” A quiet murmur through the ship, some of the rebels look angry, distrusting, and move back, even. Asteria stares them down.  
“That isn’t who we are anymore. We were Snoke’s attack-beasts, and we know that. We did things we cannot undo.” Nuaala takes a quiet breath, giving a slight nod.  
“None of us are asking for forgiveness. We aren’t asking to join you, or for your thanks, or even your help.” Her tone is blunt and low, “What we did today, we did for them.” She nods towards two figures slumped together near the entryway of the Falcon. Rey and Kylo Ren are entwined, collapsed together against the wall of the ship. Kylo Ren is filthy from battle and bleeding from his own wounds, and Rey holds him tightly even as they lie still and quiet.

Silence falls over everyone present. Leia holds Nuaala’s gaze for a long moment before nodding.  
“No matter the reason, you still have our gratitude. No one here would be alive if it weren’t for you.”  
“And them,” Solea grunts, wagging the toe of one boot towards Rey and Kylo Ren. Asteria nods.  
“They put all of this together. She,” she nods at Rey, “Rey--she wanted to help you all. We heard about the fleet, about D’Qar. She said we had to do something.” Ran’s voice is solemn even as quiet as it is.  
“They helped us to escape, as we helped them. There is more for us to finish.” Poe steps a little closer, taking a breath.  
“You guys got a medbay on this ship?” His eyes are hard, and his mouth is a slightly grim line, but he’s civil nonetheless. “I know who you guys are. I’ve been there for some of the shit you’ve done. You say you’ve left that behind, hell, I don’t have any reason to believe you--but after today, we don’t have much reason _not_ to believe you, either. We’d all be dead in that mine if you all hadn’t showed up.” He motions behind himself at the rebels gathered, “We’ve got some wounded men and some medics. You helped us. We can help you.” Silence again. Finn comes to stand beside him. Finn, they recognize. His eyes are hard.  
“You said you escaped with them. You mean from the First Order.” Asteria shakes her head.  
“We mean from Snoke.” Leeno folds his arms over his chest.  
“But we’re not free. None of us.”  
“Not so long as that bastard’s still alive,” Solea coughs, and Nuaala takes a deep breath, wincing as she does.  
“Not to be inconvenient, but do you think we could have this conversation _after_ we’ve gotten a few bacta-packs on us?”

 

The Comet’s medbay is small--this is still a private ship, and clearly it’s original owners were not expecting to have to patch up so many people. Maz helps as she can; she knows how to patch up a wound in record time, but she insists they’ll need to stop somewhere to get more patches and make sure they’ve got enough rations for everyone. She tells them she knows a place, and really, it’s Maz Kanata. They decide to just let her take lead for a while.

Chewie is the one who helps Rey and Kylo to a bunk on the Falcon. Leia herself tends to Kylo’s wounds, but…  
She calls for Luke. The two of them stand away from Rey and Kylo and watch--even without looking to the Force, they can see it: Kylo Ren’s wounds are slowly beginning to heal.  
The progress is almost unnoticeable at first, and it is still very, very slow, but Leia has noted that his bleeding has stopped, and the blaster wounds even look smaller, now, and slightly less discolored.  
“It’s barely there if you just look with your eyes, but…” Leia shakes her head incredulously, “Even I can feel it. The Force around these two…” Luke’s expression is stoic, almost grim.  
“They’re healing each other. Somehow...they’re cycling energy between their bodies. They’re using the Force to heal their wounds.” Leia looks amazed, watching the two of them sleep.  
“Is that...is that even possible?” Luke’s brow raises slightly, and he shakes his head.  
“If it wasn’t before, then it is now. Somehow, they’ve managed it.”

Finn and Poe show up in the doorway, followed by a very concerned BB-8. The round droid bumps past the two men and into the room, rolling up to where Rey and Kylo are curled up and sleeping, pausing and letting out a series of very soft inquisitive beeps. Poe takes a few steps forward.  
“Let ‘em sleep, buddy. I think she’s okay.” He looks at General Organa and Luke, “She is, right?” Leia nods.  
“Rey’s all right. If we had better equipment at our disposal right now we’d be able to know more, but…” Poe’s eyes wander to the exposed wounds on Kylo Ren, the blaster shot on his ribcage, the burns on his arm. Leia’s gotten his tunic off, and his torso is scarred in more than one place already, but the new wounds, even without bacta help, already look as if they’ve been there for a few days.  
“...What the hell…” He turns fully to face the two sleeping Force users, and Finn trails into the room behind him. Leia studies the wounds as well, but there’s something else she notices on both of them, something that draws her gaze and furrows her brow.  
There are marks, small marks, as if from needles. They suggest some kind of testing, or worse--and Leia isn’t sure what it means, what’s happened to both of them. But they are there, on both her son’s arms and neck, and Rey’s.

Finn’s quiet, but he speaks up first.  
“Is this...is this something to do with the Force? Is that what’s going on?” Leia swallows a bit, resting a very light hand on her son’s as he sleeps.  
“Yes.” Poe takes a deep breath through his nose.  
“They saved us back there. Kylo Ren, the Knights of Ren, saved us.” He runs a hand over his tired face, “We threw Rey in a detention cell, and she came back to save us with her own damn army.” The room goes silent for a moment until Finn speaks up, his voice low and even.  
“They weren’t like the rest of us,” he offers. “Stormtroopers, officers...they weren’t like us.” The group turns to him when he says this, curious.  Finn shakes his head, “It’s like the girl back there said, they were like Snoke’s attack-beasts. He was the only one that could command them. They didn’t answer to anyone else, they didn’t answer to the First Order. They were with us, but they weren’t like the rest of us.” His eyes fix on Rey, quiet and concerned. “I don’t know if that helps, I don’t know what to think myself. But…” his voice trails into silence for a long moment. “...I know what it’s like to run away from the First Order like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like this didn't 100% turn out the way i wanted it--but then that might be because i've had the TLJ version on my mind, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> i've been SO excited to get to throw the knights into a fight, and to finally use their lightsabers. it's been a while for them. i think, though, that they got to put them to good use here.  
> more of the force-healing! thankfully rey didn't have any physical injuries here, so that'll help them with that ; w; these kids need a break...
> 
> i hope this format wasn't a huge turnoff--i wanted to get the POVs across since we were skipping around for a bit there!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [FANART IMAGE Sleepy Force Cuddles Reylo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12993993) by [Mechante_minty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mechante_minty/pseuds/Mechante_minty)




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